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THE CAREER -> S, 



OF THE 



God-Idea in History. 



BY HUDSON TUTTLE, 

AUTHOR OF ''ARCANA OF NATURE," ''ORIGIN AND ANTIQUITY 
OF MAN," ETC. 



Dwelling in the light that no man can approach unto. . . . Canst thou, 
by searching, find out God? . . . Touching the Almighty, we cannot find 
him out. — Bible, 

Nothing of him that doth fade, 
But doth suffer a sea-change 
^ Into something rich and strange. 

Shakespeare. 




BOSTON: 

PUBLISHED BY ADAMS & CO. 

No. 25 Bromfield St. 



c^^M's^Co'la 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by 

ADAMS & CO., 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



PREFACE. 



Mankind, having' wearily traversed the 
marsh-lands of metaphysical and theological 
speculation, are gaining the firm shore of 
positive science. 

The sun of a new era is dawning on the 
mental horizon of the world. 

Before its beams can fully penetrate our 
being, we must discard the old, and turn, 
self-reliant, to the new. 

I have written this volume because I think 

it is demanded. 

Hudson Tuttle. 



CONTENTS. . 

PAGE 

Introduction 7 

I. 

The God-Idea of the Hindoos .... 23 

11. 

The God-Idea of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, 
and Persians 37 

III. 
The God-Idea of the Jews 53 

IV. 

The God-Idea of the Arabians . • . . 63 

V. 

The God-Idea of the Greeks and Romans . . 70 

VI. 

The God-Idea of the Alexandrian School and 
Early Christianity 109 



6 Contents. 

VI I. 

PAGE 

The God-Idea of the Later Philosophers . 131 

VIII. 
The God-Idea of the Bible . . . . . 145 

IX. 

The God-Idea of the Border-Religions, — Chi- 
nese, Druids, Scandinavians, and Aztecs . .151 

X. 

Conclusion — Ultimate of the God-Idea . . 181 



INTRODUCTION. 



'nr^HE first great religious idea is the idea of 
J- God. — Samuel Longfellow, 

Every miracle, if it existed, would lead to the 
conviction: that the creation is not deserving the 
respect which all pay to it ; and the mystics would 
necessarily be. obliged to deduce from the imperfec- 
tions of the created world the imperfections of the 
Creator. — Cotta, 

Miracles are great horrors in the domain of sci- 
ence, when not blind faith, but conviction derived 
from knowledge, is of any value. Jouvenal ob- 
serves, "There is neither chance nor miracle: 
there exists but phenomena governed by laws.'' — 
GiebeL 

No force can originate from nothing. — Liebig. 

An absolute nothing is not cogitable. — Ozolbe. 

Matter is uncreatable, as it is indestructible. — 
Vogt. 



8 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

God is a blank sheet, upon which nothing is found 
but what you have yourself written. — Luther, 

Man depicts himself in his gods. — Schiller. 

Matter and its laws are eternal. — Arcana, 

"What and where is God } " is a question which has 
been reiterated by the sage and the savage, the wise 
and the foolish, from immemorial time. It was one 
of the first great problems presented for solution, 
and is now the first to which childhood requires an 
answer. Who can fathom its depths } Which of 
the countless attempted solutions is the true } Are 
any correct } 

This is a vast subject, and leads at once to forbid- 
den fields. The traveler is constantly in danger of 
being decried as sacrilegious, — as though the gods 
in their high estate can be harmed by the efforts of 
puny mortal. If they can, theirs is the fault, not the 
mortal's whom they have created. The discussion 
of the God-idea, to the scientist, is the same as that 
of any principle. A rock, a tree, an insect, are as 
sacred as God, being a part of him, or portions of 
his work. It is time the sickly sentimentality of 
holy places and sacred things should yield to the 
new and sterling conceptions of the divinity of man, 
and the Godhood of nature. 

My endeavor is to treat the gods of the nations 
and ages with equal respect and equal scrutiny. 
Therein lies the danger. It is unobjectionable thus 



Impartiality of View. 9 

to speak of all others except our own. The theolo- 
gies of other peoples are mythologies and subjects 
of ridicule. Ours is the only true theology ; and to 
speak of God in the same breath with Jupiter, 
Brahma, or Vishnu, is profanation. But our true 
theology is a ridiculous myth to the Hindoo, the 
Persian, or Buddhist. There are as many theologies 
as there are peoples ; and the devotees of each are 
equally devoted, equally exclusive, and certain that 
they have the only sacred system in the world. 

All rest on the same basis, and stand or fall 
together. A greater devotion and earnestness can- 
not be claimed for one than another. Those sys- 
tems which we regard as the most false, paradox- 
ical as it may appear, awaken the greatest intensity 
of zeal. The worshiper of Brahma will suffer death 
with equal fortitude as the Christian martyr. Death 
has been preferred by every heathen nation to be- 
stowing worship on a foreign god. 

Callisthenes vehemently opposed paying divine 
honors to Alexander, because such adoration would 
confound human and divine worship, which had been 
preserved by his nation inviolable. The Greeks^ 
when sent on embassies to the kings of Persia, 
regarded it as mean and base to prostrate themselves 
before the throne, as such homage was allowable 
only to the gods.* Isocrates reproached the Per- 
sians for doing it themselves, because they thereby 
prostituted the homage of the gods to men ; and 
not even by violence could Xerxes compel Sperchius 

* Plutarch. 



lo Career of th^ God-Idea in History. 

and Bulls to pay him honors, because It was against 
the laws of their country to bestow such honors.* 
Such was the reverence for the gods at Athens, that 
they executed Tlmagoras for paying honors to man. 
The Idea of a supernatural cause, a divine belng^ 
omnipotently swaying the religious feelings, and 
thereby the destiny of the world, has been considered 
universal. More careful and unprejudiced observa- 
tion has brought forward many examples to the con- 
trary. On the universality of this belief Is based a 
proof of the existence of God. The critical study of 
the present has destroyed this oft-repeated evidence, f 
The tribes of the lake districts of Central Africa 
" admit neither God, angels, nor devil." % 

The Tasmanians have no word for a Creator. § 
The South-American Indians of Grau Chaco have 
no religious or Idolatrous belief or worship whatever, 
neither do they possess any Idea of God or of a supe- 
rior being. They make no distinction between right 
and wrong, and have therefore neither fear nor hope 
of any present or future punishment or reward, nor 
any mysterious terror of some supernatural power 
whom they might seek to assuage by sacrifices or 
superstitious rites." || 

* Herodotus. 

f " Prehistoric Times." Lubbock, p. 467. 

X Burton. Trans. Ette. Soc, N. S., vol. L, p. 323. 

§ Rev. T. Dove, Tasmanian Journal. 

II " Voice of Pity," vol. ix., p. 220. 

Note. — I am indebted to Lubbock for guiding me to many of the 
quoted authorities. 



Savage Views of God. 1 1 

The Caffres have no form of religion or worship. 
They think everything makes itself; and the only 
idea they seem to possess on the subject is a vague 
notion of an evil spirit. ^ 

The Brazilian Indians entertain a similar idea, f 

The Lepchas of Northern India have no religion, % 
nor have the Khasias. The religious ideas of the 
Indians of Oregon are exceedingly low. Attempts 
were made to translate the word " God," but in no dia- 
lect in that vast territory could missionaries and 
skillful interpreters find an equivalent word. § Their 
highest God was a wolf, an ideal hybrid of animal 
and divinity. The Kalashes Indians believe God to 
be a raven. 

Of the Tusks, a Mongolian tribe dwelling in 
Northwestern Asia, it is said, " Whether they have 
any conception of a divine providence, of a governor 
of the world, could not be ascertained, nor a trace 
found whether they worship a benevolent spirit, or 
demons." || The Indian population of Rio de Janeiro 
have no desire for religion. The aborigines receive 
baptism without understanding its meaning. ^ The 
Australian has no idea of a Creator, '^^ nor have the 
Bechuanas, the most intelligent tribes of the interior 

* Burchell, " Travels in South Africa," vol. ii., p. 249. 

t Spix and Martins. Bates and Walace. 

X Hooker. 

§" London Athenaeum," July, 1849. 

II Lieut. Hooper. 

^ Burmeister. 

** Australien und Seine. Colonien, 1849. 



1 2 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

of Africa. Moffat, the indefatigable missionary, could 
not awaken the least idea of a divine being in the 
South African. * Of the Bechuanas he says, " They 
have no word in their language properly denoting 
God. They have no idea of an infinite being. I have 
often wished to find something by which I could lay 
hold on the minds of the natives, — an altar of the 
unknown God, the faith of their ancestors, the im- 
mortality of the soul, or any religious associations ; 
but nothing of this kind ever floated in their minds. 
They looked on the sun with the eye of an ox. To 
tell the greatest of them that there was a creator, 
the governor of the heavens and earth, of the fall of 
man and the redemption of the world, the resurrec- 
tion of the dead, and immortality beyond the grave, 
was to tell them what appeared more extravagant, 
fabulous, and ludicrous, than their own vain stories 
about lions, jackals, and hyenas. To tell them that 
these (referring of course to the different elements 
of our creed) were articles of our faith, would extort 
an interjection of superlative surprise, as if it were 
too preposterous for the most foolish to believe." 
And Opperman says of the Kaffirs, " They have not 
the least notion of a supreme being, their chief being 
their God." f 

The Hottentots believe in a good spirit, and at the 
full moon worship with dancing. The Kariens of 
India do not believe in God, but only in the influence 
of two evil genii ; % nor do some of the Sumatrian 

* Moffat, " South Africa." 

t Quo. in Staft und Stoft. Biichner. 

Jlbid. 



Savage Views of God. 1 3 

tribes. The God of the Negroes of Oucareyanua is 
their chief, to whom they sacrifice animals and hu- 
man beings. The God of the Fiji is a being with- 
out any feeUng except hunger. He dwells with his 
companion in a cave, eats, drinks, and answers the 
questions of the priests. 

The reports of travelers are generally prejudiced 
on the religious side, and they take for granted ideas 
of God exist. Their not finding such ideas strength- 
ens their testimony. 

Those savage tribes said to have a God are far from 
possessing the Christian's idea. There is nothing 
infinite, eternal, connected with it. When a savage 
worships a snake, a stone, or bunch of rags, for a God, 
can it be supposed that he has any clear ideas of the 
God of the universe } 

The Damaras are said by travelers to have a God 
whom they call Omakura ; but the ideas they enter- 
tain of him are such as children might form, and 
have no similarity to the Infinite whom we recognize. 
His attributes vary with each tribe ; each having its 
own Omakura, to whom it ascribes all its supersti- 
tions, habits, and peculiarities. The worship of Om- 
akura consists of many puerile observances and sac- 
rifices. Animals, when sacrificed, are speared to 
death, while those used for food are suffocated. They 
keep a sacred fire burning before the chiefs tent, 
and every possible care is taken to prevent its being 
extinguished. Should this calamity occur, the whole 
tribe are assembled, and, after large expiatory sacri- 
fices, the fire is again lighted by friction. 



14 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

When a new tribe is thrown off, they carry with 
them a portion of fire from the old altar. The duties 
of a vestal devolve on the daughter of the emigrant.* 

There are disbelievers in the existence of a God 
in the midst of the highest European civilization ; 
and the recent census shows that six million people 
in England alone never enter a church, and know 
not to what religious sect they belong. These men 
are sincere, and many of them are among the great 
thinkers of the age. They deny, in opposition to 
the intense force of education and public opinion. 
Even those who believe find it impossible to state 
and prove their belief in clear and unmistakable lan- 
guage. 

The first great religious idea is that of God. From 
it arise all the grand systems of worship in the world, 
and around it cluster the hopes and aspirations of 
mankind. There are races who have not any defi- 
nite conception of God. There are others who have 
advanced to Fetichism ; and thence onward all grades 
of progress are discoverable to the most orthodox 
creed of the present. 

There is a religious element in man's nature, the 
product of his unanswerable aspirations, subject to 
the same growth and progress as his other facultie^s. 
The savage looks out on nature as an animate being. 
To him it has life and intelligence. He at once per- 
sonifies that intelligence. The air, the water, the 
earth, become something more than simply air, water, 

*Lake Ngami, pp. 219, 20. 



Personification of Forces of Nature. 15 

earth : they are possessed of a spirit. Man sponta- 
neously assigns reasons for the effects he observes ; 
and this reference to spiritual moving agencies satis- 
fies the savage as perfectly as the doctrine of a final 
cause did the superficial philosophers of twenty-five 
years ago. 

The multitude of spiritual beings were subordi- 
nated to the control of superior intelligences in the 
desire to unitize the powers or forces of creation. 

Submissiveness, humility, grow out of contact 
with nature. The matter-of-fact scientist does not 
escape this feeling when witnessing the grand phe- 
nomena of storm or ocean. The savage is a child ; 
and, like a child, he falls prostrate in fear. He 
debases himself before the invisible spirits who 
shout in the wild winds, or growl in the thunders. 
He believes everything to be governed by the arbi- 
trary will of these beings ; and, if they are interested 
in mortal welfare, they will heed his prayers. That 
they are, he does not doubt. His first conception of 
the object of creation is that it was designed for the 
especial benefit of man. Everything that conflicts 
with his pleasure or purposes is evil. Entirely, ex- 
clusively designed for man. In the sequel it will be 
seen how diametrically erroneous this idea proves to 
be. 

Out of it grows the priesthood, — men who by 
superior holiness can intercede with better grace, 
and more hope for success, than ordinary mortals, 
soiled and begrimed with contact with the world. 

All races have acknowledged this necessity ; and 



1 6 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

we see the germ of the priestly order in the medicine- 
man of the rude American Indian, and the rain- 
maker of the still ruder Central African. It is a 
wonderful history which traces from that beginning 
the progress of the order to the colossal proportions 
it assumed in India, in Egypt, or, at one time, in 
Catholic Europe. The priest is blameless. He did 
not create the organization of the human mind. 

The worship of idols grows out of nearly the same 
faculties as create the desire for priestly orders. 
The savage mind cannot imagine existence without 
personality. His deities must be men and women. 
These deities being his friends, he desires, as a token, 
a representation of them. Between the image and 
the person represented, they always imagine a secret 
bond. Many believe, that, by making a representa- 
tion of their enemy, they can inflict any violence they 
please by simply, attacking the image. To this day 
the custom lingers, though thoughtlessly regarded, 
in the popular method of expressing disapprobation 
by burning or hanging in effigy. 

The childish mind cannot worship a blank ab- 
straction : it makes an image of the being, worships 
that, feeling assured, that, by this secret connection, 
whatever devotion is expressed for it will be felt by 
the being represented. 

Voltaire truly remarks,* that no nation ever took 
the name of idolaters. It was always bestowed as 
a term of reproach. When the Roman and Cartha- 
ginian captains made a treaty, they called the gods^ 

* Phit. Die, vol. ii., p. 27. 



Origin of Idolatry. 1 7 

to witness. " It is in their presence/' said they, " that 
we declare peace ; '* yet no image of these gods was 
present. They never supposed for a moment that 
the image constituted the divinity. 

Dio Chrysostom makes Phidias answer, when 
called to account for making a statue of Jupiter 
Olympus, " Mankind do not love to worship God at 
a distance, but to come near and feel him, and with 
assurance to sacrifice to and become like him : chil- 
dren newly weaned from their parent, who put out 
their hands towards them in their dreams as if they 
were still there, so do men, out of the sense of God's 
goodness, and their relation to him, love to have him 
represented as present with them, and so to converse 
with him. Thence*have come all the representations 
of God among the barbarous nations, in mountains, 
trees, and stones." 

M. Tyrius observes in regard to statues and their 
worship : * — 

" A divine nature has no need of statues or altars ; 
but human nature, being very imbecile, and far dis- 
tant from divinity, devised these symbols, in which 
it inserted the names and the renown of the gods. 
Those, therefore, whose memory is robust, and who 
are able, by directly extending their soul to heaven, 
to meet with Divinity, have perhaps no need of 
statues. This race is, however, rare among men ; but 
few of whom are not in want of this kind of assist- 
ance. 

* Quoted in "The Zendavesta and Solar Religions," by M. 
E. Lazarus, M. D. 



1 8 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

"For Divinity indeed, the father and fabricator of 
all things, is more ancient than the sun and the 
heavens, more excellent than time and eternity ; is a 
legislator without law, ineffable by voice, or invisible 
by the eyes. Not being able to comprehend his 
essence, we apply for assistance to words and names, 
to animals and figures of gold and ivory and silver, to 
plants and rivers, to the summits of mountains and 
to streams of water ; desiring indeed to understand 
his nature, but, through imbecility, calling him by 
the names of such things as appear to us to be beau- 
tiful. And, in thus acting, we are affected in the 
same manner as lovers who are delighted with sur- 
veying the images of the objects of their love, and 
with recollecting the lyre, the dart, and the seal of 
these ; the circus in which they all ran ; and every- 
thing, in short, which excites the memory of the 
beloved object. 

"What then remains for me to investigate and 
determine respecting statues "i Only to admit the 
subsistence of Deity. If the art of Phidias excites 
the Greeks to the recollection of Divinity ; honor to 
animals, the Egyptians ; a river, others ; and fire, 
others, — I do not condemn the dissonance : let them 
only know, let them only love, let them only be 
mindful of the object they adore.'* 

Maximus of Tyre, who flourished under the An- 
tonines, thus wrote of God : — 

" When men are questioned concerning the nature 
of the Divinity, their answers are all different: yet, 
notwithstanding all this prodigious variety of opin- 



Origin of Idolatry. 19 

ions, you will find one and the same feeling through- 
out the earth ; viz., that there is but one God, the 
Father of all." 

The Emperor Julien made this remark on reli- 
giously venerating statues : " Statues and altars, and 
the preservation of the unextinguished fire, and, in 
short, all such particulars, have been established by 
our fathers as symbols of the worship of the gods ; 
not that we should believe that these symbols are 
gods, but that through these we should worship the 
gods." 

Said a Brahman to M. Bernier : — 

" We do not believe these statues to be Brahma or 
Brahm, but only their images and representations ; 
and we only give them that honor on account of the 
beings they represent. They are in our temples 
because it is necessary, in order to pray well, to have 
something before our eyes that may fix the mind ; 
and, when we pray, it is not the statue we pray to, but 
the thing represented by it." Sallust makes the admi- 
rable remark that " the honors which we pay to the 
gods are performed for the sake of our own advan- 
tage : and, since the providence of the gods is every- 
where extended, a certain habitude and fitness is all 
that is requisite in order to receive these benefi- 
cent communications ; but all habitude is produced 
through imitation and similitude. Hence temples 
imitate the heavens, and altars the earth ; statues 
resemble life ; prayers imitate that which is intellec- 
tual ; but characters, superior ineffable powers ; herbs 
and stones resemble matter ; and animals which are 



20 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

sacrificed, the inactional life of our souls : but, from 
all these things, nothing happens to the gods beyond 
what they already possess ; for what occasion can 
be made to a divine nature ? but a conjunction be- 
tween our soul and God is produced." 

The Catholic worship of saints shows this inherent 
tendency of the human soul to recognize gradations 
of spiritual beings, and local tutelar deities ; and, in 
grossness of conception, it exceeds the monstrosities 
of any heathen religion. 

The progress of the God-idea, commencing, as we 
have seen, in utter ignorance and inconception, passes 
through certain stages of growth. If the histories of 
various peoples are examined, it will be found that this 
idea, beginning at the same point, runs an almost 
parallel course. The illustrations of this truth are 
fully detailed hereafter. The savage is a believer in 
Fetichism. He beholds in nature the manifestation 
of innumerable spiritual beings, unseen, irresponsi- 
ble, and powerful, which he regards with feelings of 
unmitigated fear. Knowing nothing of law, he places 
the gods in its place, and thus renders events mere 
arbitrary acts, dependent on their changing wills. 

This is not Pantheism, which makes nature the 
external garb of an omnipotent being. It differs as 
much from that as present science differs from the 
charlatanism of the alchemists. It is not Polythe- 
ism, which is more unitary in its grasp. From it 
Polytheism arises by growth, by the subordination of 
the inferior spirits to superior beings, grading them 
into successive orders, reaching from the highest 



Rise of Pantheism. 21 

gods down to man. Out of Polytheism sprang Dual- 
ism, a belief in a good and an evil deity. From 
Dualism springs monotheism, in regular sequence, — 
a sublime generalization, unitizing creation, material 
and spiritual, under the control of one omnipotent, 
self-existent being. 

Last, in this extended series of advances, arises 
what may be called scientific Pantheism, which re- 
gards nature as one divine whole, controlled by fixed 
and absolute laws inherent in the constitution of 
matter, and which are the only expressions of divine 
will man can ever recognize ; a Pantheism which 
bestows itself on the external manifestations of law, 
well knowing that in that manner only can it learn 
anything of the divine nature, and confessing its 
incapacity, as finite, of ever understanding the infi- 
nite. The extension of this phase of thought is re- 
served for the closing chapter. 

To fin up from the history of the world, the outline 
thus hastily sketched, is the purpose of the succeed- 
ing chapters. The antique religion of Hindostan, as 
the mother of a line of offspring still vigorous, claims 
our first attention. Egypt, her direct descendant, 
and Greece and Rome, follow each other. Outside 
of this direct line are many barbarous races, inter- 
esting, though not directly connected with the grand 
tide of progress which rolls in one continuous stream 
from ancient Hindostan to the present time. I do 
not propose to treat of religious forms, creeds, and 
ceremonies, except as they illustrate the ideas re- 
ceived of God. To separate the forms of worship 



2 2 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

from their object has been a task most difficult in 
execution. Perhaps I have admitted such illustra- 
tions, in places, to an extent which mars the symmetry 
of the work, but no further than seemed necessary 
for a complete understanding of the worshiper as 
well as worshiped. 



L 

THE GOD-IDEA OF THE HINDOOS. 

For God goes forth, and spreads throughout the whole, 

Heaven, earth, and sea, the universal soul ; 

Each at its birth from him all beings share, 

Both man and brutes, the breath of vital air ; 

To him retiuTi, and, loosed from earthly chain. 

Fly whence they sprang, and rest in God again ; 

Spurn at the grave, and, fearless of decay. 

Dwell in high heaven, and star the ethereal way. — Virgil. 

To frame an adequate conception of Deity, and set this forth in words, is 
not only above human capability, but impossible in the nature of things. 
The abyss of God is not to be fathomed save by him who is All-in-all. — 

Theodore Parker. 

IF the high antiquity claimed by the Hindoos 
is considered as fabulous, still they must be 
regarded as among the oldest of peoples. The 
sacred Sanskrit alone would prove them to be 
among the first of civilized races. Not, however, 
to discuss this point, we will consult their sacred 
books, which they believe to be as old as the crea- 
tion of the world.* The Vedas they hold in great- 
est reverence. The book is not allowed to come in 

* William Jones thinks the Vedas were not written before 
the flood ; but that they are the oldest specimen of Sanskrit, 
and date about a hundred years before the birth of Moses. 
The learned Heeren says their date is entirely obscure. — His- 
torical Researches, 



24 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

contact with any animal substance, nor to be read 
in the presence of a wicked man. Brahmans alone 
are allowed to read and interpret them. If a soudra 
impiously should open their divine pages, or even 
hear a passage read, the code of Menu ordains that 
heated wax, oil, and tin shall be poured into his 
ears. Inherent sacredness and supernatural pow- 
ers are ascribed to every word, and it is sacrilege to 
make the least alteration. Such is their regard for 
a book bearing the seal of the inspiration from high 
Heaven. Of God, it teaches one Supreme Being, 
who is one with nature, — or thorough Pantheism. 
He is manifested in the grand phenomena of the 
external world, the phenomena of which are invoked 
as separate deities. Sun, moon, fire, air, water, and 
other elements and forces of nature, each have sepa- 
rate deities subordinate to the " One Immutable," and 
who are manifestations of his being. The devout 
worshiper comes in unison with him by contempla- 
tion, and subjugation of the bodily senses. In the 
words of the Vedas, — 

" Any place where the mind of man can be undis- 
turbed is suitable for the worship of the Supreme 
Being." 

*' The vulgar look for gods in water ; the ignorant 
think they reside in wood, brick, and stones ; men 
of more extended knowledge seek them in celestial 
orbs ; but wise men worship the universal soul. 

" There is one living and true God : everlasting, 
without parts or passions ; of infinite power, wis- 
dom, and goodness ; the maker and preserver of all 
things." 



God'Idea of the Hindoos. 25 

" What and how the Supreme Being is, cannot be 
ascertained. We can only describe him by his ef- 
fects and works ; in like manner as we, not know- 
ing the real nature of the sun, explain him to be the 
cause of the succession of days and epochs." 

*' That Spirit, who is distinct from Matter, and not 
contained in Matter, is not various. He is ONE, 
and he is beyond description ; whose glory is so 
great there can be no image of him. 

" He is the incomprehensible Spirit who illumin- 
ates all, and delights all ; from whom all proceed, by 
whom they live after they are born, and to whom all 
must return. Nothing but the Supreme Being should 
be adored by a wise man." 

" He overspreads all creatures. He is merely 
spirit without the form either of a minute body or 
an extended one, which is liable to impression or 
organization. He is ruler of the intellect, self-exist- 
ent, pure, perfect, omniscient, omnipresent. He has 
from all eternity been assigning to all creatures their 
respective purposes. No vision can approach him, 
no language describe him ; no intellectual power can 
comprehend him." 

''As the web proceeds from the spider, and is 
absorbed again by her ; or vegetables proceed from the 
earth ; as hair and nails grow from animate beings, — 
so is the universe evolved from the one eternal and 
supreme Soul." 

" Without hand or foot, he runs swiftly, and grasps 
firmly ; without eyes, he sees all. He knows what- 
ever can be known, but there is none that know 



26 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

him. The wise call him the great, supreme, pervad- 
ing Spirit." 

Under whatever form it may be presented, the 
mind Vvrearies of the contemplation of the Infinite. 
It is like gazing off on a boundless sea, where noth- 
ing but interminable and shoreless waves fasten the 
attention. The overwrought faculties are palsied by 
the strain. Only in the contemplations of philoso- 
phers was the Eternal One Brahm sought or ques- 
tioned. He represents the ultimate of Hindoo spec- 
ulation. 

Brahma, who is one degree lower, has many points 
of attachment for the mind. He was a direct off- 
spring of the Eternal, who, after creating the waters 
by a thought, placed an egg in them, which, after 
remaining millions of years inactive, until by the 
energy of his own thoughts, Brahma burst its envel- 
ope, and sprang forth, a divine mate, famed in all 
worlds as the forefather of spirits. Sharing the 
essence of the divine mind, he is far removed above 
mortals, and not until a lower circle of divinities is 
reached do we find qualities which awake the tender 
sympathies of the heart. Brahm and Brahma are 
cold abstractions of the intellect : Vishnu and Siva 
are personations of human passions, and are hence 
beloved and feared. Brahma, although the priestly 
caste receive from him their name, has no temples 
erected to his honor, no festivals, no especial sect. 

Vishnu and Siva, the gods of good and evil, form, 
with Brahma, the Hindoo trinity. Both are repre- 
sented as having been incarnated many times. The 



God-Idea of the Hindoos, 2 7 

former is the favorite deity ; the latter has many wor- 
shipers. He is the destroyer, the source of evil and 
misery, and is throned among the inaccessible crags 
of the terrible Himalaya. The idea his name calls forth 
is emblematized by giving his statue five faces, or one 
with three eyes ; with serpents suspended in his ears 
like jewels. His companion, Doorga, is the chief 
among the female deities in the Hindoo Pantheon. 
She is the Minerva of Greece, but more warlike and 
powerful. Her altars, unlike those of other gods, 
stream with blood ; and human sacrifice in ancient 
times was resorted to. 

By the interposition of this trinity, the perplex- 
ing problem, how evil came into the world, was per- 
fectly solved. If the supreme Brahm is infinitely 
good and powerful, how can evil exist "i Siva is the 
god of evil ; and Vishnu is not only mediator between 
the Supreme and man, but between the two and 
the Evil One. As in all other religious systems, man 
forms the centre around which gods and the creation 
of gods revolve ; but his destiny, as taught in the 
Vedas, is not consoling to our manner of thought. 
As God is everything, the human spirit must be a 
part of his essence ; and the most desirable termina- 
tion of this state of fever pains and anxieties is final 
absorption into him. This will be the result, if the 
body is perfectly subdued. The flesh is base and 
evil ; and, the more it is made to suffer, the more the 
spirit approaches the one pure Source. This idea of 
the sinfulness of the body was taken up by Chris- 
tianity, and carried to its extreme length in monastic 



28 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

seclusion, hermitage, flagellation, and self-inflicted 
tortures too horrid to mention. It is still seen in 
penance, fasting, and prayer, and the general tone of 
the most liberal religions, which teach that happiness 
is gained, not through pleasure, but pain, by bearing 
a heavy and grievous cross. 

Buddha was an incarnation of Vishnu, and thus 
the Buddhists are attached to the original religion. 
They are the most important sect that has appeared 
in India. They worship spiritual intelligences, de- 
scended on earth in the form of saints, the greatest 
of whom is Buddha Sakia Mouni, from whom they de- 
rive their name. He is thought by scholars to have 
been a great reformer, who, seeing the tyranny and 
evil of the law of castes as taught by the Vedas, strove 
to abolish those various distinctions. The date of 
his birth is fixed diflerently by various nations. In 
Cashmere, they say his appearance dates two hun- 
dred years later than Chrisnu, whose advent is placed 
back five thousand years. The Moguls say he was 
born two thousand one hundred and thirty-four years 
before the Christian era, and the Chinese fix it at one 
thousand and twenty-nine years. 

The gigantic temples of great antiquity show that 
this belief in remote times possessed a strong iiold 
on the people of India. The statues of Buddha, 
found in such edifices, represent him in an attitude of 
profound meditation, with knotted hair after the 
manner of hermits. He was born of a virgin named 
Maia : miracles announced his birth, and his life is 
involved in a maze of fable. The flights of imagina- 



God-Idea of the Hindoos. 29 

tion are indulged to picture the wonderful advent. 
The joyful tidings were announced in the animal 
world ; and the birds of the Himalaya winged their 
way to the Palace of Kapila, and there rested, singing 
on the terraces, arches, and galleries. The sands 
were covered with the lotus ; the delicious stores 
in the houses, however much used, remained undi- 
minished ; musical instruments gave forth music by 
unseen fingers ; and gods and hermits hastened from 
all parts of the horison to await on Buddha. He 
descends, accompanied by hundreds of millions of 
divinities. The three thousand regions of the world 
are illuminated with an immense splendor, eclipsing 
that of the gods ; fear and suffering are banished ; 
every being is content, and has none but affection- 
ate thoughts. Hundreds of millions of gods bear up 
the car of Buddha. At the moment of his mortal 
birth, all the flowers open their cups ; young trees 
spring from the soil ; scented waters flow in all direc- 
tions ; young lions run to the palace from the moun- 
tain, unharmed and harmless ; five hundred young 
elephants, white as snow, come, and with their trunks 
touch the feet of the king, the father of Buddha ; the 
sons of the gods, adorned with girdles, appear in the 
apartment of the women, coming and going from 
either side ; the wives of the nagaSy exposing half 
of their bodies, show themselves waving in the air ; 
ten thousand daughters of tlie gods, with fans of the 
peacock's tail in their hands, are seen against the 
blue of the sky ; ten thousand full urns appear, mak- 
* ing the circuit of the great city of Kapila ; a hundred 



30 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

thousand daughters of the gods, with shells, drums, 
and tambourines about their necks, stand motionless ; 
all the winds hold their breath ; all the rivers and 
brooks stop their flow ; sun, moon, and stars cease to 
move ; a light of a hundred thousand colors, causing 
happiness in body and soul, is diffused abroad ; fire 
does not burn ; from the galleries, palace, terraces, 
gateways, arches, are suspended pearls and precious 
stones; the crows, vultures, wolves, jackals, cease 
their cries ; none but sweet and soothing sounds are 
heard ; all the gods of the woods of Salas, thrusting 
their bodies half-way out from the foliage, show them- 
selves bending motionless ; parasols, great and small, 
are displayed in the air on every side. The queen, 
meantime, walks in the garden of Loumbini ; a tree 
bends, and salutes her ; the queen seizes a branch, 
and, looking graciously towards heaven, Buddha is- 
sues from her right side without wounding her ; a 
white lotus pierces the sod, to receive him ; a par- 
asol descends from heaven to cover him ; a river of 
cold and a river of hot water flow to him for a 
bath.^- 

Such is the language of the sacred records of this 
incarnation of divinity. To us it may appear puerile ; 
but in humility let it be remembered a vast empire 
for immemorial time have bowed in implicit faith to 
his shrine, and, holding his earth-life as an ideal, 
make their best endeavors to actualize his devoted 
disinterestedness in themselves. 

* Lalitavistara, translated by M. Edward FoucauXj quoted 
by Renan, " Rel. Hist. Criticism." 



God'Idea of the Hindoos. 31 

The fancies of uncultured youth have reveled in 
the field ; but there is bread-corn there, else it never 
would have satisfied, for so many generations, count- 
less swarms of people. It may not afford spiritual 
nourishment ' for us ; but, for its recipients, nothing 
can be better. 

How this incarnation was effected, and for what 
reason, is thus recorded : — 

" It was at the close of the Dwapar Yug, that he 
who is omnipotent, and everlastingly to be contem- 
plated, the Supreme Being, the Eternal One, the 
Divinity worthy to be adored, appeared in this ocean 
of natural beings with a portion of his divine nature.'* 

Filled with compassion for the sufferings of man- 
kind, he took on himself the mortal garb, and sought 
to lead them into better paths. He took on himself 
infinite sufferings, that theirs might thereby be mit- 
igated. As whatever suffering one endures may be 
placed to the account of those he wishes, Buddha 
took terrible punishments on himself So great 
was his sympathy, that he descended even into hell 
to teach the sufferers there. 

The Brahmans accuse him of atheism ; but he 
really taught their own doctrines of creation. Out 
of the original source of being, called by Buddhists 
the void, Brahma and the inferior creation were 
evolved ; and, after an immense interval of revolving 
ages, all things in the universe, even Brahma him- 
self, will be absorbed into the infinite void. At the 
age of seventy-nine years, Buddha Sakias whole 
nature attained such complete absorption in the Di- 



32 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

vine Being, that he ascended to celestial regions 
without the usual process of dying. 

*^ The Buddhists believe in one absolute existence, 
including both God and nature. When they speak 
of Providence, they mean an intelligence inherent in 
nature by which her movements are regulated. To 
avoid attaching any idea of form or limit to the ori- 
ginal Source of Being, the Buddhist calls him by a 
name signifying the void or space. They are, how- 
ever, divided on this subtile question into several 
schools. Some call this absolute existence the Su- 
preme Will, the Superior Intelligence. They suppose 
that he has alternate periods of activity and repose. 
When active, he creates, not from any will to do so, 
but from inherent laws of development. Thus ema- 
nate successive worlds, all changeable, illusory, unreal, 
destined finally to return again to the void. Spirit- 
ual existences are evolved in descending gradations 
down to man. Human beings may become so 
plunged in error and ignorance, as finally to lose all 
power of perceiving what is good and true. From this 
low condition they can never be raised without the 
aid of superior intellegences. The Supreme cannot 
descend to their relief, for he is incapable of motion 
or change ; but his first emanations, a high order of 
spiritual existences, change themselves with this 
mission of salvation. They descend to the inferior 
worlds, even down to the lowest hells, to give 
wretched creatures an example of virtue, explain the 
cause of their misery, and teach them how to attain 
supreme happiness." 



God'Idea of the Hindoos. 33 

Their cosmology is evolution from void, and a 
resolution back again to void after a cycle of ages. 
Their ideas of nature are entirely anthromorphitic. 
The perfection of a world depends on the moral 
character of its inhabitants. In proportion as the 
beings of a world are saved, and ascend to superior 
worlds, that world disappears. Thus, after infinite 
ages, all return to the Supreme Essence, to re-appear 
in new successive emanations. All these ascending 
and descending movements have their source in laws 
of inherent necessity. 

Buddha has already been four times incarnated in 
the present world. His worshipers call him " The 
Saviour," and anxiously await his coming to restore 
the world to order and happiness. 

India, as well as Europe, has its school of Ration- 
alists. They deny the authority of the Vedas ; reject 
the doctrine that God is everywhere in nature ; main- 
taining, that, though nature is an emanation from 
God, she is entirely independent and distinct, con- 
taining within herself the laws and principles which 
regulate her phenomena. 

The body and spirit represent, finitely, such a 
dualism as God and nature represent infinitely ; and 
by withdrawing the senses from the external world, 
without help from the Vedas, a superior life of holi- 
ness can be attained, a union with the Supreme Soul 
be formed, and revelation of his will be obtained. 

The ultra school deny the existence of one 
Supreme, holding that there are many. All, how- 
ever, believe in the existence of a multitude of infe- 
3 



34 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

rior deities, but represent them as very inferior to 
human saints who have united themselves with the 
Supreme by a hfe of contemplation and virtue. 

In the extreme East, as well as the farthest West, 
among the oldest as well as the newest people, mind 
has been subject to the same law of growth, and 
passed through a similar cycle of change. The 
Hindoo stands before us with the concentrated 
beliefs of innumerable ages. Those remote times 
are the scaffoldings by which he has arrived at his 
present faith. They are impenetrable ; and we look 
upon the result as a whole, and ask, How avoid 
admitting its divine claims t In this study, as in 
all others, analogy furnishes important clews. As 
the oak and the acorn are connected by the series of 
trees of all stages of growth, from the germinating 
sprout to the giant tree, so the perfected doctrines 
are connected with the grossest superstitions by the 
intervention of savage races. Take any savage peo- 
ple, at random, and find what they believe ; and you 
have the belief of all other races at their stage of 
growth. 

The Hindoo theology began in the aspirations of 
the savage, and terminates in the extreme of Ration- 
alism. Its various stages of growth are plainly 
marked. It has followed a groove similar to that 
pursued in its progress by the Western mind. 

The mark of divine thought is manifested in its 
creeds ; but it is the divine and ever-advancing 
thought of man. We believe this, because it is a 
foreign system we are discussing. The Hindoo be- 



God'Idea of tk^ Hindoos. 35 

lieves the same of our theology : can we examine the 
latter with the same calm, unprejudiced spirit ? 

But how was evolved this intricate maze of wor- 
ship ? Very simply and inevitably, from the begin- 
ning. Old as is Hindoo civilization, it had a com- 
mencement ; and the ancestor of the believer in 
Brahm was a wild savage, believing in no god, but 
only terrified by fear at the irresistible power of the 
elements. This was his course of thought, — the 
same for all races : He gave to everything a con- 
scious existence. Rocks, trees, mountains, lakes ; 
the winds, the waves ; whatever excited attention by 
beauty, loveliness, or deformity, — were endowed 
with intelligence. The child repeats this phase of 
thought. 

The next step is the individualization of this intel- 
ligence. 'A host of invisible beings supply the mov- 
ing power to the visible world. Man ever regards 
nature as created for his especial use ; • hence what- 
ever conflicts with his interests is evil, and whatever 
administers to his wants is good. Both these condi- 
tions exist in nature. There is good and evil : there 
must be good and bad invisible beings. There is a 
dualism in nature : there are two sources of power. 
By generalizing, there is a good and an evil deity. 
It is a long, long road, and one beset with pain, 
before the necessity of one supreme control is recog- 
nized. The advance is, however, made ; and Brahm, 
the Eternal One, unchanged amid all changes, 
serene amid obscurity, calm in the storm of the 
world, is grandly seen as the paren.tal source of all 
being. 



36 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

The steps in this magnificent ascent are clearly 
and deeply cut : the personification of invisible 
power ; the dualism personified by Brahma and Siva, 
with the mediation of Vishnu ; the incarnation of the 
good principle ; and, lastly, the unitizing of all phe- 
nomena in the eternal, immutable Brahm, the pri- 
mal source and termination, — are way-marks of this 
progress. 

It is usual to begin to reason from the other side ; 
to commence with Brahm, and end with the lowest 
emanations of spirits : but nothing can be more 
opposed to the reality. To be able to grasp the idea 
of the Omnipotent One, necessitates ages of culture. 
It is the great idea to which all others are secondary. 
To suppose it to be first is like inferring that a child 
can comprehend a problem in the calculus before it 
can perform an operation in addition. There is 
growth, not from the great to the small, but from the 
small to the great. The Hindoos began with the 
forces of nature, and from the constitution of their 
own minds, by the slow growth of their mental 
powers, wrought out a theological system suited to 
their needs, just as they did their systems of science, 
art, and government. All bear the impress of the 
same master, and that impress is entirely human. 



11. 



THE GOD-IDEA OF THE EGYPTIANS, CHALDEANS, 
AND PERSIANS. 

The first form of religious belief is nothing else but a horror of the unknown. 

. . . No natural religion appears to have been able to develop, from a 

germ within itself, anything whatever of real advantage to civilization. — 

Waitz, '' Anthropologie." 
The universe is an harmonious whole, the soul of which is God. Numbers, 

figures, the stars, all nature indeed, are in unison with the mysteries of 

religion. — Kepler. 

THE geographical position of Egypt made it im- 
possible for its people to escape the influence 
of foreign religions. It was the gateway between 
Asia and Africa, and a vortex of nations. For ages 
it was a grand battle-ground, where contending races 
fought for supremacy. The original substratum on 
which was imposed the shepherd races is indetermi- 
nate in the night of countless centuries which gath- 
ers over the dim myths of history. 

The matured theology of Egypt resembled, in 
many essential points, that of India, of which it un- 
doubtedly was a branch. The paternal tree did not 
remain stationary, neither did the scion; but, al- 
though both changed, the common characteristics 
were preserved. Both countries had a powerful 
hereditary priesthood, who held exclusive possession 



38 Career of the God-Idea hi History. 

of the sacred books, and all the learning extant in 
their time ; and were the judges, physicians, and as- 
tronomers. In both countries, society was divided 
into castes, the sacerdotal being the highest. The 
priests were allowed in both to marry, and neither 
tolerated female priests. Both held their rivers to 
be sacred ; that there was a reservoir of water above 
the firmament ; that there was a fifth element above 
our atmosphere called ether; that the castes were 
successive emanations from one universal soul ; and 
that transmigration was the destiny of the soul. 

• Their architecture was similar, copying the gloomy 
cavern, and taking the firmly based pyramid as a 
model. Their sacrifices were similar, and their as- 
tronomical systems nearly the same. 

The Hindoos exerted a great influence on Egyp- 
tian religion, as is thus seen. 

Egypt was originally governed by the gods, the 
last of whom was Osiris and his son Horus ; but, by 
gentle gradations, it descends from this sublime 
height to mortal kings. 

Osiris was the representative of the active and 
passive powers of nature. He was the fructifying 
power of the universe. The sun was his sacred em- 
blem, as was the Hindoo sign of reproduction, and a 
serpent emblematic of immortality. He was the 
" oldest son of Time, and courser of the day." 

While incarnated, he fulfilled a glorious mission, in- 
structing men how to cultivate and prepare the corn 
and the grape, and other secret arts of agriculture ; 
after which, through the regions of the dead, he as- 



Good and Evil. 39 

cended to higher hfe, first overcoming the evil princi- 
ple. Henceforth he became judge of the dead, and 
ruler over the souls of good men. He was thus made 
the dispenser of immortal life. As the only deity who 
had become incarnated, he was more reverenced than 
all the eight higher gods. It was irreverent to utter 
his name. Herodotus speaks of him as *' one whose 
name I am not at liberty to disclose.'* 

Ra represented the visible sun, and was wor- 
shiped with splendid ceremonials at Heliopolis. 

Troth, representing the moon, presided over learn- 
ing, and was the mediator between gods and men. 

The perplexing problem of the origin of good and 
evil was solved by the Egyptians by supposing Ty- 
pho, the God of Destruction, to be the twin brother 
of Osiris, the Creator. He was the god of darkness 
and eclipse ; the source of drought, disease, deluge, 
conflagration, and every malign influence aflecting 
the happiness of man. He ruled the terrible, destruc- 
tive energies of the sea, — the storm, the whirlwind. 
He was sculptured as a frightful monster, or sym- 
bolized by the ravaging hippopotamus. 

The most exalted goddess was Neith, who reigned 
inseparably with Amon in the sphere of ether. She 
was the mother of the gods, and the feminine origin 
of all things. Her especial province was wisdom, 
philosophy, military tactics, and morals. Her tem- 
ples at Sais exceeded in colossal grandeur any before 
seen, and her power was written on their walls in 
characters deciphered by Champollion : — 

" I am all that has been, all that is, and all that 



40 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

will be. No mortal has ever raised the veil that 
conceals me. My offspring is the sun.'' 

Isis was universally worshiped, and held in pecu- 
liar reverence. She was the universal passive prin- 
ciple of generation, as Osiris was the active. She 
was the recipient or mold of the life imparted. She 
was the origin of the form of all good, as Osiris was 
the soul. She was Nature, — the prolific mother 
containing the germs of all life ; hence her symbol 
was an egg. Both she and Osiris were represented 
as bearing the Egyptian cross, emblem of life. The 
most beautiful representation pictures her nursing 
the infant Horus, son of Osiris. This is the holy 
family of Egypt, which the artists loved to depict. 
She is always by the side of that god in Amenti, 
when he presides as judge of the dead. She reigned 
with him on earth ; and, when she died, her soul was 
transferred to Sirius. As that star is accidentally 
connected by its risings with the inundations of the 
Nile, it was taken as the cause of that event, and 
received divine honors. 

The forces of nature were distributed among the 
innumerable host of inferior deities and spirits. The 
stars were animated with souls who took a deep 
interest in human affairs. Nilus presided over the 
Nile ; Canopus, over the waters ; Khan and the god- 
dess Ranno, over gardens and vineyards ; Anouke, 
over purity and household ties ; and every month, 
corresponding to the signs of the zodiac, had its at- 
tendant and ruling spirit. To every human being 
was awarded an attending spirit ; and, in a descend- 



Belief in Immortality. 41 

ing scale, air, earth, water, stones, plants, and ani- 
mals, all had their attending genii, good or bad 
according to their qualities in reference to man. 

The masculine and feminine elements were a 
dualism of forces universally diffused. The presid- 
ing deities of every place formed a trinity. At 
Thebes, it was Amun, the creative wisdom ; Neith, 
the spiritual mother ; and a third, supposed to repre- 
sent the universe. At Philae, it was Osiris, the 
generating cause ; Isis, the receptive mold ; and 
Horus, the result. 

The future of man, in his relation to the gods, was 
similar to that taught by the Brahmans. After many 
transmigrations, completed in three thousand years, 
the soul would be absorbed into the Eternal Soul, 
and enter the original body it had left. Hence the 
care bestowed in embalming the dead, and the rev- 
erence in which their bodies were held. 

The belief in immortality is closely allied with 
that of a supreme being, and is of very ancient date. 

On a monument dating ages before Abraham is 
this epitaph : " May thy soul attain to the Creator of 
all mankind ! '' The two beliefs growing out of the 
same faculties of the mind go hand in hand. 

Of the animal worship for which Egyptian my- 
thology has become famous, little need be said. The 
bull Apis was an object of veneration, and had tem- 
ples erected to him. The cat, alligator, and other 
animals, were also venerated in certain localities. 
Such worship awakens our mirth, as it called forth 
the satire of the Greeks and Romans, who might 



42 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

better have directed their shafts against the absurdi- 
ties of their own behefs. Our own mythology is 
not exempt from ridicule. All dogmas and beliefs 
grow out of the necessities of their times, are un- 
questioningly received, and satisfy an ardent want. 
We cannot sympathize with the worshipers of Apis ; 
but they were honest believers, and acted accord- 
ing to their highest knowledge. 

The sacred books of Hermes were as holy to the 
Egyptians as the Bible is to the most devout mod- 
ern Christian. The Pantheistic idea of the univer- 
sality of God made them abhor the shedding of 
blood ; and, from the symbolical representation of 
spiritual ideas by animal forms, their worship became 
degraded to idolizing the brutes themselves. 

The Egyptian mythology clearly indicates its der- 
ivation from grossest Fetichism by the hold that be- 
lief retained, even during the most splendid epoch 
of their civilization, and the tendency of the masses 
towards that simple form of expression of faith. 

In the Hght of her glory as the seat of learning, 
Egypt could boast of all grades of worship, from the 
ignorant rustic, bowing in abject devotion before a 
a leek or garlic, to the adoration of the sage for an 
abstract idea. The gulf dividing these extremes was 
greater even than at present. 

Chaldea. 

It is interesting to learn the beliefs of these old 
races, almost concealed and lost in the night of 



Chaldea. 43 

time ; for, by this means, we find that what we call 
new is only one of the countless forms of the old, 
which, like water, takes the form of the containing 
vessel. The world is ever a new world to the child, 
or the new race. We cannot, therefore, comprehend 
the new, unless we learn the past ; for it is the prod- 
uct of a germ deeply buried in the past, and its roots 
strike down through the interminable superimposed 
strata of past civilizations. By understanding the 
beliefs of contemporary peoples, we comprehend the 
doctrines of the Jews ; and, as the latter are the basis 
of Christianity, the subject is to us of vital interest. 

The Chaldeans were of the Semitic stock, and 
were impressed with the grand idea of Monotheism 
in common with their race. The vast plains and des- 
erts which formed their home, by the sameness of the 
scenes nature presented, re-acted on the minds of 
this singular people. With awe we exhume the grand 
sculptured cities of their creation, whose age ante- 
dates the chronology of history, and idly conjecture 
of the builders. 

What little is known of them can be briefly stated. 
They believed in one supreme being, from whom, by 
successive emanations, a multitude of subordinate 
deities were evolved. The human soul was a portion 
of this supreme, and originally had wings, which 
must be reproduced before it can return to its source. 
This idea came from received notions of a better 
past, lost by the spirit coming to earth, connected 
with a childish longing for the swift wings of a bird, 
which seemed most desirable, and, if gained, would 



44 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

enable the spirit to wing its way through the ether 
to its original happy home. The world was created 
in six successive periods. Whenever all the planets 
meet in the sign of Capricorn, the whole earth is 
overwhelmed by a deluge of water ; and, whenever 
they all meet in Cancer, it is consumed by fire. In 
this statement is discernible the rude outline of what 
was afterwards worked into the Jewish cosmogony, — 
the six days of creation, the deluge, and final destruc- 
tion by fire. 

A shepherd race, wandering over the deserts, 
above which spreads an almost cloudless sky, through 
which the stars glow with uninterrupted splendor, 
they early observed the stars, and at length came to 
regard them as disembodied spirits, and to worship 
them. 

What object in the entire range of startling phe- 
nomena presented by nature is as astonishing as the 
rising of the sun } The breaking light wakes all 
nature from slumber, and infuses life and joy. It is 
the fountain of life, from which flows all activity, and 
seems the most worthy object of worship in creation. 
The orb of night is second only in position, and is 
closely followed by the planets wandering through 
the sky, yet ever returning. All of these commanded 
and received adoration. The highest deity was Baal, 
prince of the heavenly luminaries. The Egyptian 
emblem of a winged circle, or Sun, was his symbol, 
and on his altar animals and probably human beings 
were sacrificed. 

The magnificent temple erected by Semiramis 



Persia. 45 

contained three golden statues, — one of Baal; one 
supposed to be the Goddess of Nature ; and one 
the goddess representing the planet Venus, who 
presided over generation. 

The Goddess of Nature, the recipient and pre- 
server of the life principle of the world, sat in a 
golden chair, with two lions by her side, and two 
huge serpents at her feet. The forehead of the other 
goddess was surmounted by a star : in her right hand 
she held a serpent ; in her left, a sceptre adorned with 
gems. By such symbols did the souls of the old 
Chaldeans strive to embody their inchoate and inex- 
pressible conceptions of the Divine. 



Persia. 

History furnishes many examples where one man, 
emerging from obscurity, has suddenly elevated his 
people to the broad platform of the world's activities. 
Among these great minds, that shine athwart the 
ages like beacons from some Eddystone light, few 
were as celebrated in antiquity, yet so little known 
in the present, as Zoroaster, the saviour of the Per- 
sians. His doctrines slaked the thirst of many 
ancient philosophers, created schisms in the ranks of 
early Christianity, and present, in many respects, 
unsolved problems to the learned. 

The period fixed for his advent varies by thousands 
of years, — some authors stating it at five thousand 
years before the Trojan war, or six thousand before 



46 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

the Christian era ; * while others maintain that he 
flourished only fifteen hundred years before that 
epoch.f The solution of this contradiction is found 
by some scholars, by supposing that there were two 
personages of that name, — one very ancient, and an- 
other who must have lived before the commencement 
of the Median Empire, or at least eight centuries 
before Christ. % 

The advent of this God-man is enshrined by a halo 
of myths. His mother was alarmed in dreams that 
evil spirits sought to destroy the unborn babe, but 
was assured by a good spirit, who said to her, " Fear 
nothing. Osmuzd will protect this infant. He has 
sent him as a prophet to the people. The world is 
waiting for him.'' 

In early life he retired to a solitary mountain to 
attain holiness. One day fire descended from heaven 
on this mountain, and the King of Persia approached 
to worship, when Zoroaster came down out of the 
flame, bringing with him a book of laws, revealed by 
Ormuzd himself This book is the Zendavesta, or 
living word. It is believed to be a part of the pri- 
meval word by which creation was produced, and 
that every syllable possesses inherent virtue. If the 
priests fail to perform the ritual, or recite the pre- 
scribed prayers, it is supposed the order of the 
universe will be disturbed, and all things fall into 
confusion. 

Of his death, it is said that he invoked the spirit of 

* Aristotle, Pliny, Plato. f Plutarch, J Heeren. 



Advent of Zoroaster. 47 

the constellation Orion, and ascended on a thunder- 
bolt. 

This belief existed long before the advent of 
Moses, and it is easy to discern the parts which 
were taken to build the fables of the Pentateuch. 

Zoroaster looked through the confusion of phenom- 
ena, and sought to find the unitizing power in one 
supreme essence, invisible, incomprehensible, named 
Zeruane Akerene, or Unlimited Time, Eternity. 
From him sprang Primeval Light, which gave birth 
to Ormuzd, the King of Light. He is the ''All-See- 
ing,'' the "Just Judge," the " Sovereign Intelligence." 
He pronounced the primeval word, and his own 
abode of light sprang into existence. He then cre- 
ted six resplendent spirits or holy ones, of whom he 
was the seventh, or highest. The deities of Benev- 
olence and Wisdom stand by his throne, and bear 
to him the prayers of inferior spirits and of men. 
He then created twenty-eight inferior spirits to pre- 
side over the sun, moon, and stars ; and, while they 
protect mankind from evil influences, they serve as 
messengers between them and the superior spirits. 
The third order of spirits are more numerous, and 
are personifications of the idea of Ormuzd before 
the creation of the world. Hence they are the 
archetypes of everything which exists, the vivifying 
principle of nature. Every mortal as well as spirit, 
even Ormuzd himself, has one of these attending 
spirits. 

Khor, the sun, was called the eye of Ormuzd, and 
was an object of universal adoration. The universe 



48 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

was thus intrusted to a chain of spiritual beings, 
ascending from man to Ormuzd. Minerals, plants, 
insects, earth, water, air, fire, the months, and the 
days of the month, all had presiding spirits. 

The spirits of the stars were benevolent guardians 
of man and infirm creatures, and were endowed with 
intelligence superior to the spirits of the earth. 
They foreknew the events of the future, and saw 
whatever was occurring or going to occur in the 
universe. The destinies of men were intimately 
connected with their motions ; and the Persians held 
them in such affectionate reverence, that, whenever 
they looked at them, they devoutly kissed their 
hand. 

To account for good and evil mingled in nature, 
and avoid the seeming inconsistency of referring 
both to one source, was the great problem, or rather 
mystery, of the ancient world. In reality, it is no 
problem at all ; but to a people who have not ad- 
vanced to the understanding that nature is controlled 
by unchangeable laws, that evil and good are alike 
results of law, and have only relative relation as 
affecting man, they appear in absolute antagonism. 

The Egyptians solved the mystery by supposing 
the Destructive and Beneficent Principles were twin 
brothers. The Persians satisfied themselves by say- 
ing Ormuzd, the King of Light, was the first ema- 
nation from the Eternal One ; and Arimanes, the 
Prince of Darkness, was the second. Arimanes 
becoming jealous, the Eternal One condemned him 
for three thousand years to the dark realm of shad- 



Creation of the Devs. 49 

ows, during which time Ormuzd created the firma- 
ment with its orbs of hght. When the period of his 
punishment expired, Arimanes approached the light, 
and its dazzHng beauty renewed his jealousy. He 
set himself at counteracting the works of the Benefi- 
cent. He created seven archdevs, and attached them 
to the planets, to paralyze the works of the good 
spirits, and substitute evil. He then created twenty- 
eight devs, to spread all species of disease and 
distress ; after which he made a multitude of genii, 
that every object might have an evil as well as good 
spirit. 

Ormuzd saw the disastrous results, and, in his 
beneficent thought, sought to arrest the increase of 
evil by the creation of an egg containing kindly 
spirits : but Arimanes created another, containing 
evil spirits ; and then, to make the confusion com- 
plete and irreparable, he broke the two together. 

" The cosmogony of the Zend is nearly the same 
as that revealed to the writers of the Bible at an 
indefinitely later period. 

" Ormuzd created the material world in six succes- 
sive periods. He first spread out the firmament with 
its orbs of light ; second, he created the water ; third, 
the earth ; fourth, trees ; fifth, animals ; sixth, man. 
When all was finished, he devoted a seventh period 
to festivities with the good spirits. Arimanes as- 
sisted in the creation of the earth and water. Or- 
muzd, by his will, created a bull, the symbol of all 
life upon the earth. Arimanes slew him ; but drops 
of his blood, falling on the ground, afterwards pro- 



50 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

duced various plants and animals. When the ele- 
mentary particles of his body had been purified in 
the light of the sun forty years, they became the 
germ of the Ribas tree, consisting of two closely 
entwined stems. Into these Ormuzd infused the 
truth of life ; and they became the first man and 
woman, named Meshia and Meshiane." 

This pair were created in perfect purity ; but were 
seduced by the evil spirits, and discord and death 
were introduced into the world. 

The duration of time is fixed by the Eternal One 
at twelve thousand years. During the later times, 
Arimanes, notwithstanding the activity of the good 
spirits, will gain the ascendency ; and the pure in 
heart have nothing to fear, for the Eternal has de- 
creed the ultimate triumph of good. At the end of 
time, a star with a tail will strike the earth, and set 
it on fire. The fierce heat will cause the metals to 
run down the mountains, and flow in rivers. All men 
are compelled to pass through these. The good will 
experience only pleasure, but the bad will suffer 
indescribable anguish. All however, even the incor- 
rigible Arimanes, come out purified, and join in a 
universal chorus of praise to the eternal source of all 
blessings. 

On that day the Holy One judges the world, each 
one according to his works ; after which the new earth 
will be a source of indescribable beauty, and inno- 
cence and happiness everywhere prevail. 

Fire, as the ethereal emblem of the orbs of the 
sky, and especially of the sun, was worshiped with 



Persian Sacrifices. 51 

peculiar reverence. It was considered the most 
purifying of all things. No dead bodies were allowed 
to be burned ; and to cast dirt into the sacred fire, or 
to blow it with the breath, was punished with death. 
The identical fire received by Zoroaster from Or- 
muzd was said to be preserved, and was sustained by 
aromatic oils and wood, and was carried in front of 
the army by the priests when they went out to bat- 
tle. 

The Persians sacrificed vegetables, fruits, and flow- 
ers. Human beings were buried alive as an offering 
to a subterranean deity. To Mithras, the Mediator, 
they S9,crificed beautiful white horses. In early times, 
worship was always performed in the open air, it be- 
ing considered irreverent to confine the Deity within 
walls ; but in after times temples were erected, and 
numerous oratories, where the sacred fire was kept 
burning for the people to go in and pray. 

In these Persian and Chaldean myths, we discern 
the source of what may be called the substratum of 
Christian beliefs. It is usual for divines to escape 
this conclusion by reversing the table, and supposing 
the laws were the original, and every other belief in 
the world to be derived from them. This is very 
convenient when a certain infallible creed is to be 
sustained, but it is neither the philosophical nor true 
method. Chronology gives the Zoroasterian doc- 
trines the precedence ; and, if the Jewish agree with 
them, it proves their derivation. It would be strange 
indeed, if a neighboring people, brought in contact 
by the arts of peace, and for centuries amalgamated 



52 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

by the influence of conquest, scattered, as the Bible 
says, over the whole Persian Empire, should not ab- 
sorb some, at least, of the ideas of their conquerors. 
An examination of their beliefs will show the subject 
in clearer light, and strengthen the conclusion of the 
human source of the Hebrew myths. 



III. 

THE GOD- IDEA OF THE JEWS. 

The words translated '^ God," *' Devil," etc., in the various dialects of sav- 
ages, simply mean the manifestations of the unseen world, and have no 
relation to personal being. 

Two things are necessary to render religion possible, — namely, a religious 
faculty in man ; and God out of man, as an object of that religious fac- 
ulty. — Theodore Parker. 

IT is assumed by popular theology, and advocated 
by noted critics, and generally received, that the 
Jewish nation was selected by the Almighty to car- 
ry down to later ages the knowledge of the one true 
God. The entire Semitic race is thought to be mon- 
otheistic, and to have enacted an important part in 
the history of the world by introducing this other- 
wise foreign element. 

Paley, Milman, and Renan, speak glowingly of the 
pure monotheism of the Jew, contrasted with the 
polytheism of surrounding nations. Only the dust 
which gathers over theological glasses could so ob- 
scure rrten's minds, otherwise clear, to the truth. 

The Jews at the beginning were not monotheists, 
nor did they ever obtain the conceptions of divinity 
revealed by the philosophers of Greece. Their his- 
tory reveals the fact, traced in that of all nations, of 



54 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

a gradual progress from fetichism to a grand concep- 
tion of one Almighty Power. 

The individual first sets up a god, which becomes 
a god of his family ; and, when the family enlarges 
into a tribe or nation, the family penates becomes 
the national deity, and from thence ascends to the 
position of the God of the universe. 

It is expressly said that the father and grandfather 
of Abraham worshiped other gods ; and Abraham 
himself was doubtless taught the planetary worship 
of the Chaldeans, and accustomed to pay devotion to 
images. In the entire course of Abrahamic history, 
his God is represented as acting so meanly and des- 
picably, that it is difficult to avoid concluding that he 
is anything more than the reflection of the mind of 
his devotee. God sits at the door of Abraham's 
tent ; partakes of a repast ; is angry because Sarah 
laughs ; and, after discussing the case of Sodom and 
Gomorrah, says he is going down there, to prove the 
reports that have reached him. 

The expression " Jehovah Elohim, the God of 
gods," indicates the Jewish beliefs in other gods. 
When Jacob stole Laban's gods, the latter pursued 
him. Then Jacob made a condition on which he select- 
ed Jehovah for his God : he made him a confidant 
in his trickery, and wrestles and extorts by main force 
a blessing. 

Out of a host of deities, Abraham selects one, and 
promises obedience to that one. When his tribe mul- 
tiplies, his individual god becomes a national deity. 
In the hands of Moses, educated in the sacred Egyp- 



Abrahamic Legends, 55 

tian mysteries, this god improves in character, and 
the national worship becomes more monotheistic. 
But all Moses claimed for his God was superiority. 
" Who is like unto thee, Jehovah, among the gods } " 
He writes in the commandments, '^ Thou shalt have 
no other gods beside (or before) me." Joshua does 
not represent the desertion of Jehovah as atheism, 
but simply as ingratitude. 

With all the energy displayed by their intrepid 
leader, they, however, constantly relapsed into idol- 
atry. 

With the advance of culture, the same difference 
between the God of the educated and ignorant man, 
as seen in Greece, occurs. One is an intangible 
spirit, the other an enlarged man. 

Of the ideas of the rude patriarchs concerning 
Deity, little is known. Abraham seems to have 
obtained a glimpse of the eternal power of creation, 
and to have believed that all the deities of surround- 
ing peoples were only subordinate beings. By pay- 
ing devotion directly to the Supreme, and thus be- 
coming his chosen people, they at once became 
exalted above all other nations. Wise and sagacious 
as Abraham is said to have been, he still retained 
the traditions of his education. He held to the popu- 
lar belief in the sacredness of groves, and planted one 
**at Beersheba." Wherever he sojourned, he erected 
an altar, and sacrificed to the Lord. He even was 
imbued with the notion, universal among the ancients, 
that human sacrifice was acceptable to the gods, and 
so nearly consummated that of his son Isaac. 



56 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

The sale of Joseph by his brethern first brought 
the nomadic Jews in historic contact with Egypt, 
then the bright focus of all the world. During a 
residence of four hundred years, they must have ac- 
quired many of the names, customs, and myths of 
that people. Joseph married a daughter of a priest 
of On, and was skilled in magic. When he died, his 
body was embalmed. Moses is said to have been 
" learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians." As 
the adopted son of the king, he was allowed free 
access to the sacred knowledge of the priests, and 
was initiated into the Great Mysteries, where he 
learned the most secret doctrines of the Sacerdotal 
Order. From the fitful glances of fragmentary his- 
tory, we learn that those mysteries taught the exis- 
tence of one Invisible, all-powerful God, whose 
attributes were symbolized by the numerous deities 
worshiped by different nations. This all Moses 
adopted as his particular guardian and friend. In 
this he was sanctioned by the long series of patriar- 
chal teachings. But, exalted as was this conception, 
the ritual he prescribed bore a strong resemblance 
to its Egyptian model. He called his God " Jehovah," 
a word containing the past, present, and future tenses 
of the Hebrew word " to be," signifying " I was, am, 
and will be." This strikingly resembles an inscription 
on a very ancient Egyptian temple, — ^ " I am what- 
ever is, was, and will be." The names of Egyptian 
deities were never expressed in the popular language, 
and in the sacred dialect were not pronounced as 
written. The same reverence for the name of their 



The Tabernacle and Ark. 57 

deity is felt by the Hindoo. The Jews followed the 
example of their Egyptian masters in their rever- 
ence for the name ''Jehovah/' expressing it by a short 
mark which they read " Lord." The priestly judges 
of Egypt always wore a breastplate ornamented with 
jewels ; and this breastplate, set with the Urim and 
Thmmim, was retained by Moses. 

The tabernacle was a copy of the Egyptian temple, 
with its tank of water, its holy of holies, veiled from 
vulgar gaze. In the innermost sanctuary of the 
temple was a chest, or shrine, on which was placed 
a sacred image, overshadowed by creatures with 
wings, transposed into Hebrew mythology as cheru- 
bim. Scholars have arrived at the conclusion, after 
much discussion, that these cherubim were similar 
to the winged bulls so common in Chaldean and 
Egyptian sculptures. 

The ark had rings, through which poles were 
slipped, that it might be carried on the shoulders of 
priests. The Egyptian priests are represented in 
the sculptures as carrying shrines in the same 
manner. 

The anointing of kings and priests with sacred 
oil was an Egyptian custom, as was the lineal descent 
of the high-priesthood, the setting-apart of lands, the 
wearing of pure white linen at certain sacrifices, and 
the festival to welcome the new moon. Their offer- 
ings to their gods were precisely like those prescribed 
by Moses. They believed that burnt offerings were 
a grateful savor to the gods. The scape-goat, and 
purification by the ashes of a red heifer, were pecu- 



58 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

liar Egyptian observances imitated by Moses. From 
time immemorial, traveling parties in Hindostan 
carry with them a pole with the image of a serpent 
wreathed around it. The Egyptians connected the 
serpent with the healing art. The emblem of the 
Greek god of medicine was a serpent wreathed 
around a staff. Moses made a serpent of brass, and 
placed it on a pole ; " and it came to pass, that, if 
a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the 
serpent of brass he lived." 

The Egyptians abhored swine, and considered 
them unclean above all food : if a priest touched one 
accidentally, he went through the ceremonies of puri- 
fication. Moses commanded the Israelites not to 
eat nor touch the flesh or carcass, and prescribes 
ceremonies of purification should this be done. 

Circumcision was a peculiar Egyptian rite, and at 
the time of Moses was considered by them to be of 
more importance than by the Hebrev^s. 

The destruction of Egyptian records severs Hebrew 
theology from that of the Nile ; but these fragments 
show how intimately they were interwoven. Moses 
made a great step in advance. He erected a priestly 
caste. His whole nation became a holy people. The 
sacred mysteries of religion were freely divulged to 
all, at least the concealed portion was reduced to a 
minimum, and the invisible God was worshiped 
without the intervention of images. This God dwelt 
in the midst of the people, sustaining, overwatching, 
rewarding, and punishing them. The prevalent idea 
of masculine and feminine deities he discarded, and, 



Chaldean Gods. 59 

with it, the impurities of popular mythology. But 
we must speak gratifiedly of the purity of his ideas 
of God. If removed from the passion of love, he was 
not from those of hate, jealousy, and revenge. He 
is changeable, and can be conciliated. His charac- 
ter is that of the Jew, intensified. As the gods of 
Greece were embodiments of the ardent imagination 
of the Greeks, Jehovah assimilated the iron complex- 
ion of the Hebrew. He commands them to smite 
surrounding nations, and spare not ; to kill the men, 
and take the women for themselves ; and enjoy the 
" vineyards they had not planted, and harvests they 
had not saved." 

The patriarchs were on most familiar terms with 
God. They often saw him and talked with him. He 
wrote the Ten Commandments on a tablet of stone, 
and enters into the minutest details of rules and ob- 
servances, even to the fringe on the priest's garments ; 
yet they constantly reverted to idolatry, or the wor- 
ship of other gods. 

Aaron erected an altar to a golden calf, which they 
worshiped, in imitation of the Egyptian Apis ; and in 
the next generation, after making the most binding 
compact with Jehovah, they fell into the worship of 
the Chaldean gods of the sun and moon. Restored 
by Gideon, the true worship was again deserted at 
his death for Baal-Berith. 

When the Hebrews dwelt in tents, a tent served 
for their God : but, when the king built a house for 
himself, it occurred to him that his God ought not 
to dwell less honorably ; and this idea, broached by 



6o Career of the God-Idea in History. 

David, was fully carried out by Solomon in the tem- 
ple that Sacred Writ has made famous. • The idea 
was similar to that of the surrounding nations, all of 
whom had temples, many far surpassing in size and 
splendor that of Solomon. It was not in accordance 
with Jewish policy to multiply their temples. The 
one God must have one temple, to which the nations 
must come, around which it must gather, and far 
from which it could not expand. Their God was 
wholly exclusive. The Mosaic religion was for a 
tribe, a small nation circumscribed m its territory. 
In their most depressed state, the Jews asserted their 
lofty and exclusive claims as the only chosen people 
of God. They sought not to convert, but to repel. 
Adopted by a single family on the plains of Chaldea, 
when that family became as the sands of the sea- 
shore, he still maintained his supreme place. 

In what may be called the vulgar rendering of the 
great cardinal principles, the Hebrews were as lost, 
and conjectured as childishly, as any of their despised 
neighbors. They adopted the prevailing idea of 
subordinate spirits, employed by God as mediums 
of communication with man. Their most ancient 
name for God, " Elohim," means " more than one ; *' 
and God is represented by a plural pronoun in the 
Bible, — as, " Let us make man after our image ; " 
" Man is become as one of us.'* 

The Hindoo sacred books describe the grand, 
beautiful "' spirits of singing stars," who rejoice 
together when a good deed is accomplished. Their 
counter part is found in Job, who says, " When the 



The Cabala. 6i 

foundations of the earth were fastened, and the 
corner-stone thereof was laid, the [spirits of the] 
morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God 
shouted for joy." 

The captivity in Babylon exerted a marked influ- 
ence on the Jews. Previously they believed in the 
existence of evil spirits, but not until then did they 
form a conception of a great rebellious spirit in oppo- 
sition to God. They then transplanted the Persian 
Arimanes into their mythology. Daniel considered 
Michael the protecting spirit of the Jews ; thereby 
showing, that, like all the surrounding nations, he 
believed each people had a guardian spirit. Tobit 
borrows the Persian Amshaspands, and alludes to 
their office when he causes Raphael to say, " I am one 
of the seven holy angels which present the prayers 
of the saints, and go in and out before the holy one." 

The Cabala embodies the traditions which through 
the passing ages attached themselves to the Mosaic 
writings, and may be called the mythological part of 
Hebrew theology. According to it, God was pure 
uncreated light, existing by necessity of his nature, 
filling all space, and having inherent life and motion. 
lie was the infinite, of whose ideas beings were rep- 
resentatives, and in whom they always existed. 
Wisdom was the feminine infinite ; and from the two 
sprang the first Adam, the '' express image of God." 
From the latter was evolved ten spirits and four 
worlds, the lowest of which is the earth. Planets 
and stars are animated by spirits, who were inter- 
ested in the affairs of men, could communicate with 



62 Career of the God-Idea in History 

them, and prophesy. One of the most conspicuous 
of them was Netraton the Mediator, who recorded 
the good deeds of men. There were lower orders of 
spirits, the evil ones, whose chief was Belial. They 
constantly sought to destroy the labor of the good. 
God was thus removed by the interposition of spirit- 
ual agencies from matter, and man became the end 
and care of creative energy. 

So great was the veneration of the Jews for their 
sacred writings, that they did not allow the book of 
the law to be written on parchment made from the 
skin of any unclean animal, or prepared by any one 
but an Israelite. When copied, not a word must be 
written from memory, and every word must be pro- 
nounced before written. Before they wrote the name 
of Deity, they always washed the pen. Before they 
touched the book, they washed their hands, and not 
then unless it was first covered. 

The value of the Jewish belief is estimated iii a 
masterly manner by De Wette. They never reached 
a high degree of culture, not even as high as sur- 
rounding nations. Their literature was entirely in 
the hands of the priests, and essentially theocratico- 
mythological. They set out with the idea that God 
miraculously interposed in the affairs of men, and 
thus unitized all their writings by this theocratico- 
religious pragmatism. 

'' Thus saith the Lord," makes the Old Testament 
a history of God. Its miracles have their origin in 
ignorance, and in the distance of time between the 
events and their narrative. 



IV 



THE GOD-IDEA OF THE ARABIANS. 

Will our line reach to the bottom of God ? There is nothing on earth or 
in heaven to which we can compare him : of course we can have no im- 
age of him in the mind. — Theodore Parker. 

THE Arabians are a branch of the Semitic stock ; 
and, as theology partakes decidedly of the char- 
acters of race, their conceptions of Deity resemble 
those of their near relatives, the Jews. 

Previous to Mohammed, they were worshipers of 
the stars, angels, and their images ; which they hon- 
ored as inferior deities, and mediators between man 
and the supreme God. They acknowledged one 
Creator and Lord of the Universe, Allah Taala, the 
Most High God, to whom all other deities were sub- 
ordinate. These inferiors were called Dahat, the 
goddesses ; and the Greeks, according to their usual 
custom of resolving the religions of all countries into 
their own, stated that the Arabs worshiped but two 
deities, Orotalt and Alilat, names synonymous with 
Bacchus and Urania.* 

The veneration of the Arabs for the stars natu- 
rally gave rise to the pre-eminence of the latter di- 
vinity. The prayers they usually addressed to the 

* Koran. Sale. Pre. Discourse. 



64 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

Supreme ran thus : " I dedicate myself to thy ser- 
vice, O God! Thou hast no companion, except thy 
companion of whom thou art absolute master, and 
of whatever is his." When they sacrificed, however, 
they divided their offerings between the supreme and 
the inferior deities, the Koran upbraiding them for 
giving the most and best to the latter. This is com- 
mon to all mankind, for the Infinite Creator is too far 
removed from humanity to awaken more than a cold 
and vague appreciation. They erected seven temples 
to the seven planets, each tribe having some special 
deities. Several of these were typified by large rude 
stones. Some believed neither in creation past, nor 
resurrection to come. They referred the origin 
of things to nature, and their dissolution to age. 
Others received both ; among whom were those who 
had their camel tied to their sepulchre, and allowed 
to perish, that they might not be obliged to go on 
foot. Some believed in metempsychosis ; and, from 
the blood of the brain of the dead, a bird was found 
called Hamah, which once in a hundred years visited 
the sepulchre ; though others say that the bird is 
animated by the soul of the person unjustly slain, 
and constantly cries, *' Give me to drink," meaning the 
murderer s blood, until his death is avenged, when 
it flies away. 

The stars shining through the clear atmosphere of 
the desert, by their corresponding appearance with 
certain expected events, naturally evoked devotion. 
The Arabs were early acquainted with the magi, and 
were not loath to receive portions of their religion. 



God'Idea of Arabia. 65 

The Hamyarites were devoted to the sun, and had a 
temple at Aden, where the enthusiasm of the devo- 
tee could be kindled by seeing from the rocky pre- 
cipice the glorious luminary rising like an orb of fire 
from the bosom of the Indian Ocean.* The moon, 
the. dog-star, the planets, all were held by certain 
tribes as special deities, and their religious festivities 
were fixed by terms of the equinox and solstice. 

The stars were dispensers of the weather, and in- 
habited by angelic beings intermediate between man 
and the supreme God. Hence the divine honors to 
propitiate their favor. 

Of these siderial divinities, the Koran mentions 
three who were worshiped under female names, — Al 
Lattah, Al Uzzah, and Manah. The great tribes of 
Arabia were divided in the worship of these. Manah 
was represented by a rough block of stone, of a black 
color, fixed on a golden pedestal. The Koran spe- 
cifies five other deities, — Wadd, worshiped under the 
human figure by the tribe of Kelb ; Sawah, a female 
deity adored by the tribe of Hamadan ; Yauk, bear- 
ing resemblance to a horse ; Masr, that of an eagle ; 
and Yaghuth, a popular deity of Yemen, that of a 
lion. Hobal was a famous deity whose statue was 
brought from Belka in Syria. It was the image of a 
man cut from red agate, and placed on the top of the 
Kaaba near those of Abraham and Ishmael. Having 
by accident lost the hand which held the divining 
arrows, the lost member was supplied by one of gold. 
He was surrounded by three hundred and sixty infe- 

* Hist Arabia. Harper & Brothers. Vol. i., p. 19. 
5 



66 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

rior deities, and thus the devout of Mecca were en- 
abled to worship a new divinity every day in the 
year. 

The Hanifites worshiped a lump of dough for a 
god, and only ate it in cases of extreme famine. 
Like the Greeks and Romans, the Arabians had 
household gods who received their last adieux when 
they went abroad, and their first salutation when 
they returned, after whom they named their chil- 
dren, and gloried in being counted servants and vo- 
taries.* On the altar of these gods victims were 
sacrificed, and some were stained with human 
gore, t 

From this gross fetichism the Arabians were ele- 
vated by the teachings of their great prophet. The 
book he left them has served them for a sacred and 
infallible oracle. 

The Koran was neither written consecutively, nor 
did it slowly mature from a vague and indeterminate 
text : it is rather a complication of Mohammed preach- 
ing, bearing the impress of his daily thoughts and 
necessities. The daily recitations were written down 
by his disciples on skins, the shoulder-blades of sheep, 
or polished stones ; or preserved in their memory 
by his principal followers, who were called bearers of 
the Koran. Not till the Caliphate of Abou Bekr 
were these fragments joined together. There can 
be no dispute that the compilation was made in good 
faith, and with strict honesty of purpose. No 
attempt at reconciliation was made. The longest 

* Sale. Pre. Dis. Selden de Diis Syriis, \ Porphyry. 



The Prophet Mohammed. 67 

chapters were placed first, and the shortest at the 
end. 

A second revisal was made under the Cahphate of 
Othman. Some changes in spelling were made ; the 
text fixed according to the dialect of Mecca ; and 
then, to prevent farther discussion, all the other cop- 
ies were collected and burned. The book is thu» 
presented as a record of the sayings of the prophet, 
and by its glaring contradictions conclusively proves 
that it has not met with any important change. 

Mohammed is a subject of history. His advent was 
so recent that his origin has not been lost in myths. 
The Arab is free from paying divine honors to man, 
and hence delights in the human side of his proph- 
et's character. Nothing is concealed. His infirmi- 
ties and humiliations are unflinchingly recorded. He 
begins life as a commission merchant. Could the 
mythic personages of the past be brought under the 
same blaze of historic light, how rapidly would with- 
er the grand fables by which they are enshrined ! Of 
his morality, the severe rules of a European must 
not be applied to a child of the desert. He was up- 
right, just, and honest, /^r excellence, according to the 
Arabian standard. Whatever may be the opinion 
of his character and mission, it cannot be disputed 
that his religious system is a great advance on that 
of ancient times. It was such an advance as Christi- 
anity made on paganism, and equally great. It was 
made in the only direction the Arabians were capa- 
ble of going. 

The Koran breathes the loftiest conceptions of the 



68 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

supreme Deity. God brings forth the living out of 
the dead, and the dead out of the Uving. All things 
in heaven and on earth are subject to him. He 
justly challenges the most exalted comparison. He 
is the Mighty and the Wise.* He sends the winds, 
and raises the clouds, and spreads them over the 
heavens as pleases him. " It is God who created 
you in weakness, and after weakness has given you 
strength ; and after strength he will reduce you to 
weakness and gray hairs : he createth that which he 
pleaseth, and he is the wise and the powerful, f He 
is a witness over all things, and knows whatsoever 
occurs in heaven or earth. He forms the unseen 
party to the most private discourse. " He is the 
first and the last ; the manifest and the hidden. It 
is he who created the heavens and the earth in six 

days, and then ascended to his throne He is 

with you wherever you be He is the kingdom 

of the heavens and the earth, and unto God shall all 
things return. He causeth the night to succeed the 
day, and he causeth the day to succeed the night ; 
and he knows the innermost part of men's hearts.'' J 
He knoweth the past and the future. His goodness 
is boundless, and his wrath terrible. His mercy is 
unlimited. His words, laws, and sentences, unutter- 
able. He is the only giver of victory. 

" God is one God : he begetteth not, neither is he 
begotten ; and there is not any one like unto him." § 

* Koran, p. 334. J lb. p. 438. 

t Sale's Koran, p. 332. § Koran, chap. 112. 



The God of the Arab. 69 

Such was the sublime utterance of the great 
prophet, the speech of a wonderful people, who gave 
voice to the wild solitude of the desert, and saw, in 
the monotony of surrounding nature, the reflection of 
the ONE God. 



V. 



THE GOD-IDEA OF THE GREEKS AND ROMANS. 

DiEU est plus que la totale existence, il est eu meme temps I'absolu. 1\ 
est I'ordre ou les math^matiques, la m^tapliysique, la logique sont 
vraies : il est le lieu de I'id^al, le principe vivant du bien, du beau, et 
du vrai. Envisage de la sorte, Dieu est pleinement et sans reserve ; il 
est et^rnel et immuable, sans progres ni devenir.— Renan. 

You shall come to the knowledge of God when you show yourself worthy 
of it. — PoTHiNus, Bishop of Lyons. 

GAY, imaginative, plastic, the Grecians seized the 
mythologies of surrounding races, and, out of 
all, wove a pattern, fascinatingly beautiful, and full 
of golden threads. Their ceremonies and rites were 
thus an aggregation of fragments. 

They had no sacred books, though Minos received 
his laws direct from Jupiter. Their early poets fur- 
nished a substitute. Homer and Hesiod fixed their 
theology. The dreams of poets and the embellish- 
ments of fancy became sound orthodoxy. Hesiod 
has beautifully expressed the aspirations of the hu- 
man heart for happiness ; and, not finding it in the 
present, looked to the remote past, to the Garden of 
Eden, for the golden age. Then men lived like gods ; 
and there were neither passions, vices, vexation, nor 
toil. Then all were happy in companionship with 
divine beings. The earth was beautiful, and spon- 



The Brazen Age, 71 

taneously yielded an abundant harvest. Man was 
afflicted with none of the infirmities of age ; and, 
when called to a higher sphere, he simply slumbered. 

Then followed the silver age, when men's lives 
were shortened because of their neglect of the gods, 
and injustice towards each other. 

Then came the brazen of turbulence and insin- 
cerity. The present is the iron age, still more de- 
generate, the Cali Yug of the Hindoo, when the life 
of man is shortened to a span, and all manner of 
crimes, violence, fraud, and disease, everywhere 
abound. Homer assigns similar attributes to the 
gods as Hesiod. They are actuated by human de- 
sires, passions, and motives, and are admirable far 
more for superior power than moral excellence. In 
their system, a direct supernatural agency guides 
and controls all things, from the greatest to the 
smallest. 

Every thought of the poet and philosopher was 
received by inspiration : even to laugh was to become 
subject to the influence of a god. Between gods and 
men there was a living intercourse. They often vis- 
ited cities disguised as travelers. Gods from other 
countries were constantly being adopted into the 
Greek Pantheon. All their deities bear traces of a 
foreign origin, and the stories told of them are the 
mixed legends of various nations. They adopted the 
seven planetary spirits of the Egyptians and Hindoos, 
— Apollo the sun, Diana the moon, Jupiter, Saturn, 
Mars, Mercury, and Venus, — and consecrated suc- 
cessive days to them. The seventh day was sacred 



72 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

to Saturn from time immemorial : Hesiod and Homer 
call it the holy day. 

Zeus, or Jupiter, was differently represented at 
different periods. As the supreme god, his aspect 
varies with the foreign elements introduced. He- 
siod and Homer describe him as the supreme creator 
of heaven, earth, and sea ; the father of the gods and 
men ; omnipotent to all except the unchanging de- 
crees of the Fates. He never appears on the stage 
of human affairs, being so exalted that there must 
be a mediator between him and man. The transpo- 
sition of Indra from the Hindoo to the Greek Pan- 
theon is indicated by the conception of Jupiter as 
the son of Ether, armed with a thunderbolt, sur- 
rounded by the moon and stars. He is in this con- 
ception married to his sister Juno, who represents 
the air, and had Iris, the rainbow, for an attendant. 

Minerva was goddess of wisdom, presiding over 
the sciences, arts, poetry, and philosophy. 

Bacchus was god of wine and the vintage. 

Ceres was the goddess of the harvest ; Mercury, 
of orators and thieves ; Pan, of generation ; Venus, 
goddess of beauty and pleasure ; Cupid, god of love. 

Apollo was the central figure in Grecian mythology, 
and was adored as the god of light, eloquence, medi- 
cine, and prophecy. 

The theology of Greece and Rome was a vast accu- 
mulation, which it is tedious to explore, and foreign 
to our purpose. It is replete with vague strivings 
and wandering flights of the imagination, like the 
crude conjee turings of children ; the essence of the 



Doctrines of Orpheus. 73 

poetry of Nature. To those antique men, Nature 
was a living, thinking, acting being, and they were 
children prattling at her breast. We can amuse 
ourselves by unraveling the web of fable, but let us 
not treat lightly what to them was purest truth. 

The popular theology was only the external garb. 
The philosophers passed through it, and sought the 
deep, underlying principles of nature. 

To them we turn for the solution of the grand 
problem of creation. Perhaps they make a final 
and conclusive statement ; perhaps only what, at best, 
are personal opinions. 

The earliest of the Grecian teachers was Orpheus, 
who flourished about 1200 B. C. He taught that 
there was one invisible ,God, who contained within 
himself the germ of all things, and was alternately 
active and passive. In his active state, successive 
grades of beings emanated from him by inherent 
necessity, all of whom in different degrees partook 
of his divine nature, and ultimately returned to 
him. 

The universe would be destroyed by fire, and re- 
newed. '' The empyrean, the deep tartarus, the 
earth, the ocean, the immortal gods and goddesses, 
all that is, all that has been, and all that will be, was 
originally contained in the fruitful bosom of Zeus. 
He is the first and the last, the beginning and the 
end. All beings derive their origin from him. There 
is only one power, one only Lord, one universal 
king." . 

Thales taught about 636 B. C. He is justly con- 



74 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

sidered as the father of Greek speculation. Only 
fragments of his doctrines remain, but enough to 
show that from them was woven the variegated and 
splendid web of Hellenic philosoph}^ 

He said, ^' The principle of all things is water." 
This proposition will undoubtedly bring a smile by 
its apparent absurdity, but it probably possessed a 
deep meaning to him. He strove to find the primary 
substance, the one principle from which all things 
are evolved. He saw with his penetrating glance 
that existences are but modes, and that these modes 
undergo constant transformations. Beneath all this 
fluctuating external, he sought an unchanging in- 
ternal power. Water is the most universal ele- 
ment. It fills the earth, seems generated in the at- 
mosphere, and life itself appears to be the direct 
product of moisture and warmth. Hence he, mis- 
guided by appearance, maintained that water was 
the beginning of all things. Cicero has no right to 
interpret this proposition by supposing Thales " held 
water to be the beginning of things, but that God 
was the mind which created things out of water.'' 
Such an interpretation is the growth of later times. 
Aristotle * expressly denies that the early physicists 
made any distinction between matter and its moving 
cause, and adds that Anaxagoras was the first who 
arrived at the idea of a formative intelligence. Thales 
could not have had any idea of such creative power. 
He believed in the gods and generation of the gods ; 
but they, like all things else, had their origin in 

* Metaph. i. 3. 



speculations of Anaximenes. 75 

water. Beyond that powerful element he saw noth- 
ing. By it he sought to unitize the diverse phenom- 
ena of nature. 

Anaximenes followed and developed th|3 doctrines 
of his master, Thales.* He pursued the same meth- 
od, but arrived at different results. To him, water 
was not the most significant element. He felt with- 
in him something, he knew not what or wherefore, 
but which was ever present. This he called his life, 
and life he believed to be air. There was also, with- 
out, an invisible but ever-present air. The air with- 
in him was individualized Ufe ; but was it not a part 
of that without } Then was not this external air the 
universal life 1 was it not the beginning of things } 
He met confirmations of his ideas. The earth like 
a broad leaf rested upon it. All things were pro- 
duced from it, and all were resolved back into it. 
When we breathe, we inhale a portion of this univer- 
sal life. The universe became, to this philosopher, 
a living, breathing structure. It was an advance on 
the teachings of Thales, and even scientists of to-day 
repeat and prove its proposition. From air all things 
are created, and back to air all things are resolved.f 
Air answers a better purpose as a universal element 
than water. To Anaxagoras and his followers, it 
stood for God ; though any idea of such an intelli- 
gence they had not conceived. Air was their high- 
est ideal. 

Diogenes, of Apollonia, flourished about 460 B. C. 

*Ritter. fLiebig. Chemical Lectures. Dumas. 



76 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

He followed the preceding, but extended his spec- 
ulations. He was deeply impressed with the analogy 
between the soul, or life, and the air ; and he pushed 
this to its limits. What constitutes air, the creative 
origin of all things } Its life. It has a soul higher 
than itself, and must consequently be prior in point 
of time : it must be the primordial element sought. 
The universe is a living creation, self, evolved by 
its own vitality. 

Thus obscurely is expressed the first dim concep- 
tion of a creative cause. Air as life did not neces- 
sarily possess intelligence. Diogenes endowed it 
with thought. " It knows much," he said ; '^for, with- 
out reason, it would be impossible for all to be 
arranged duly and proportionally ; and whatever 
objects we consider will be found to be arranged and 
ordered in the best and most beautiful manner." As 
order can only originate in intelligence, there must 
be a soul. This was a great advance ; but how child- 
ish the application he made of it ! As air gives us 
life by respiration, worlds and the universe must 
respire. The attraction of moisture to the sun, or 
iron to the magnet, was a kind of respiration. Man's 
superiority over brutes is caused by his erect posture, 
enabling him to breath a purer air than animals 
whose heads are near the ground. 

Thus step by step did these oldest of philosophers 
painfully tread the misty uncertainty, and approach 
the conception of a universal soul. It was reached 
by means of a mistaken notion that the breath was 
the producer of life, and hence was, itself, living ; a 



speculations of Anaximander. 77 

notion growing out of superficial observation, and a 
childish appreciation of nature.* 

Anaximander, of Miletus, taught that " the Infi- 
nite is the source of all things." What he meant by 
the term '' infinite," we cannot determine ; and even 
the ancients themselves were equally in the dark. 
We can readily see how he arrived at such a conclu- 
sion if we place ourselves in his position. He was a 
mathematician, and as such delighted in the purely 
abstract. Water, he argued, could not be the all ; for 
it was a thing, and a thing cannot be all things. 
Only the unlimited All could supply the conditions. 
The production of individual things resulted from 
the motion of the Infinite. 

This Infinite is one, yet all. Within it is com- 
prised the multiplicity of elements, which need only 
separation to appear as distinct phenomena. The 
decomposition of the Infinite is creation ; and this is 
the result of motion. " He regarded the Infinite as 
a being in a constant state of incipiency, — which, 
however, is nothing but a constant secutive and con- 
cretion of immutable elements ; so that we might 
well say the parts of the whole are ever changing, 
while the whole is unchangeable." 

Lewes remarks, " The idea of elevating an abstrac- 
tion into a being — the origin of all things — is base- 
less enough. It is as if we were to say, there are 
numbers one, two, three, four, twenty, eighty, one 

* Ritter. This idea of the air being endowed with life is ex- 
pressed in the Bible : "And God breathed in his nostrils, and 
he became a living soul." 



78. Career of the God-Idea in History, 

hundred ; but there is also number in the abstract, 
of which these individual numbers are but concrete 
realization : without number there will be no num- 
bers. Yet so difficult is it for the human mind to 
divest itself of its own abstractions, and to consider 
them as no more than as abstractions, that this error 
lies at the root of the majority of philosophical sys- 
tems."* In modern times the doctrine of this phi- 
losopher has been revived by Hegel, who has only 
changed the words by which it is expressed. 

Anaximander s conception was not ideal. His 
*' All Things " was purely physical. It was the de- 
scription of a fact, rather' than the statement of a 
principle. His creation had existence, but not infi- 
nite intelligence. He advanced a step, but the latter 
idea was to him unknown. 

Pythagoras flourished about 500 B. C.f He is 
classed with the founders of mathematics. His sci- 
entific skill has been grossly exaggerated, as has 
been every portion of his life. He was called a 
worker of miracles, a teacher having more than hu- 
man wisdom ; and his birth was referred to a miracu- 
lous interposition of the gods. These fables show in 
what high estimation he was held by his contempo- 
raries. 

He taught in secret, and, like Christ, never wrote. 
His method was purely deductive, and deigned only 
to consider the most refined abstractions ; and hence 
his school has been styled the mathematical. The 

* Biog. Hist. Phil. 

\ A very uncertain date. See Anthon's Class. Diet, p. 1 153. 



speculations of Anaximander. 79 

greatest mathematicians and astronomers of anti- 
quity were among his followers. With our present 
clear and positive knowledge of things, it is difficult 
to understand the doctrines of these early sages, who 
thought intently, but seeking to unravel the myste- 
rious web of creation by an evolution from their own 
minds, rather than by observing facts, were entirely 
befogged. They were children only, and were con- 
tent with the same reasoning which contents a child. 
Pythagoras taught that numbers were the principle 
of things." * 

Anaximander saw beyond this, that numbers were 
not final. In attributes and position, they are con- 
stantly changing. They are variable, while the eter- 
nal cause cannot vary. Pythagoras saw the neces- 
sity of such an unvarying existence, and called it 
number. An individual may change its position and 
attributes, but its numerical existence cannot be de- 
stroyed. It can never be less than one. Resolved 
into the minutest particles, each particle is one. Nu- 
merical existence, hence, is the only invariable exist- 
ence, and all things are but the copies of numbers. 
Analogies cannot be carried farther than this in re- 
lation to finite things, nor to the Infinite. The Infi- 
nite, therefore, must be one. One is the absolute 
number. It exists in and for itself. All others are 
but numerical relations of one. As one contains all 
other numbers, it contains the element of the whole 
world. One must be the beginning of all things ; for, 
with whatever we commence, we must start with 

one. 

* Aristotle, Metaph., i. 6. 



8o Career of the God-Idea in History. 

It will be seen that the whole system rests on a 
verbal quibble ; but it was a quibble too profound for 
detection by the greatest of the Greeks. Unac- 
quainted with any other language, they fell into the 
natural mistake of making distinctions of words cor- 
respond to distinctions of things, and then reasoning 
from the words instead of the things. 

What Anaximander calls the Infinite, Pythagoras 
calls the One. Neither recognized mind as an attri- 
bute of the Infinite. The latter has been supposed 
to have taught that there was a " soul of the world," 
but no sohd ground exists for such an opinion. This 
is an idea of much later date. His doctrine of the 
soul refutes it. He regarded mind as a phenom- 
enon. It is a self-moving monad, which in the planet 
or the brute loses its intelHgence. If such concep- 
tions were held of finite mind, there could have been 
no idea of infinite intelligence. The interpretation 
given by Cicero, that Pythagoras conceived God to 
be the all-prevading soul of nature, of which human 
souls were portions, is refuted by Aristotle. * The 
Pythagorean God was the number one, the infinite 
measure of all other numbers. 

Xenophanes, contemplating the blue arch above 
him, inclosing the world, unchangeable and eternal, 
pronounced the wonderful sentence, " The Infinite is 
a sphere." There was no anthropomorphism in his 
system. He was pantheistic. The universe was 
self-moving, self-existing. 

Parmenides taught that there was but one being. 

* Metaph., b. i., chap. 5. 



speculations of Heraclitus. 8i 

Non-being was impossible. Hence the one is all 
existence, neither born nor dying. 

Zeno was born about 500 B. C, and was one of 
the most celebrated sages of antiquity. He was the 
inventor of that logic renowned as dialectics, so ably 
handled by Socrates and Plato. His doctrines may 
be thus briefly stated : * " There is but one being 
existing necessarily indivisible and infinite. To sup- 
pose that the one is divisible, is to suppose it finite. 
If divisible, it must be infinitely divisible. But sup- 
pose two things to exist, then there must necessarily 
be an interval between these two ; something sepa- 
rating and limiting them. What is that something > 
It is some other thing. But then, if not the same 
thing, it must be also separated and limited ; and so 
on ad infinitum. Thus only one thing can exist as 
the substratum for all manifold appearances." 

Heraclitus declared the Infinite One to be fire. 
To him it was the type of spontaneous force and 
motion. He says, " The world was made neither 
by the gods nor man ; and it was and is and ever 
shall be an ever-living fire, in due measure self-en- 
kindling, and in due measure self-extinguished." 
This is only a modification of the previous systems. 
The water of Thales, and air of Anaximenes, is the 
fire of Heraclitus. Fire ever springing into flames, 
and passing into smoke and ashes, is a beautiful and 
striking emblem of the ebb and flow of being ; the 
restless changing flux of things which never are, but 
always becoming. This flux and reflux, he finely ex- 

* Lewes. 
6 



82 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

presses in his symbol of a river : " No one has ever 
been twice on the same stream, for different waters 
are constantly flowing down : it dissipates its waters 
and gathers them again, it approaches and recedes, 
it overflows and falls." " All is motion : there is no 
rest or quietude. As all life is change, and change 
is strife, the strife between opposite tendencies is the 
parent of all things." He was the first to teach the 
inherent vitality of nature ; that, while matter and its 
forms underwent endless mutations, supreme har- 
mony ruled over all, and the Infinite Being remained 
changeless and undisturbed. 

Anaxagoras made some remarkable speculations 
on the origin of things, and anticipated by glimpses, 
as it were, many of the generalizations of modern 
science. He held, that, so far from the all being the 
one, it was the many. In the beginning the many 
were unmixed. What was to change their condition, 
and from their isolation evolve a harmonious state '^. 
That power he declares to be intelligence, the mov- 
ing force of the universe. He rejected fate, and de- 
clared chance to be the cause unrecognized by hu- 
man reasoning. In a passage preserved by Simpli- 
cius, he says, " Intelligence is infinite and auto- 
cratic : it is mixed up with nothing, but exists alone 
in and for itself. Were it otherwise, were it mixed 
up with anything, it would partake of the nature of 
all things ; for in all these is a part of all, and so 
that which is mixed with intelligence w^ould prevent 
it from exercising power over all things." We here 
catch a glimpse of the modern idea of Deity acting 



speculations of Empedocles. 83 

through fixed and undeviating laws on matter, but 
not mixing otherwise with the matter acted on. 

Again he says, " IntelHgence is of all things the 
subtlest and purest, and has entire knowledge of 
all. Everything which has a soul, whether great 
or small, is governed by intelligence. Intelligence 
knows all things separated ; and the things that 
were, and those which now are, and those which will 
be, — all are arranged by intelligence." In this pas- 
sage, he anticipates, by hundreds of years, the ideas 
of his age. The infinite intelligence not only knows, 
but acts. There is only one intelligence, there can 
be but one ; but of substances there must be many. 
It must, however, be borne in mind that this intelli- 
gence bore no resemblance to human intelligence. 
It was an abstract term, and might with equal pro- 
priety have been called number, or the one. 

Empedocles, born at Agrigentum 444 B. C, re- 
sembled Pythagoras in the manner in which fable 
has surrounded his name. To him are ascribed the 
same august demeanor and power over the laws of 
nature. He proclaimed himself a god, and was so 
received by the citizens of a city at the time the rival 
in arts and intelligence of Syracuse. He was trans- 
lated, amid a flood of great effulgence, during a 
sacred festival. Like all the sages of antiquity, he 
traveled in the East, and there learned the potent 
secrets of medicine, magic, and the wonderful art of 
prophecy. 

Each generation of philosophers made some 
advance on their predecessors, and Empedocles took 



84 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

long strides ahead. Of the divine nature, the infi- 
nite All, he reasoned in the same manner we reason 
to-day. He maintained that like could only be 
known to like. By each element we learn the 
qualities of itself: as of fire, through fire ; of strife 
and love, through strife and love. Hence the divine 
can only be known through divine reason. That the 
divine is recognized by man, is proof that the divine 
exists. Knowledge and existence mutually irriply 
each other.* He declared God to be destitute of 
all organs. 

" He is wholly and perfectly mind ineffable, holy, 
With rapid and swift glancing thought pervading the whole 
world." 

Of the creation, he beautifully said, — 

" Fools, 
Who think aught can begin to be which formerly was not. 
Or that aught that is can perish and utterly decay. 
Another truth I now unfold. No natural birth 
Is there of mortal things, nor death destructive final : 
Nothing is there but a mingling, and then a separation of the 

mingled, 
Which are called a birth and death by ignorant mortals." 

This creation, by mingling, presupposed certain 
primary elements, which were the material mingled. 
These elements were four in number, — earth, air, fire, 
and water. Out of these, all things were created. 
The formative power was love. Of course there 
must be an antagonist to produce separation. This 

* Lewes. 



speculations of Democrites. . 85 

was hate. Harmony was the perfect state ; discord 
the imperfect. Love was the creative, hate the de- 
structive, principle. 

" All the members of God war together, one after 
the other." 

His idea of God, of the One, was that of a " sphere 
in the bosom of harmony, fixed, in calm rest, gladly 
rejoicing.'' This sphere of love exists above and 
around the world. Hate has power over only the 
smaller portion of existence, only over those parts 
which become disconnected from the whole. 

Democrites, equally famous as the preceding, 
uttered some remarkable generalizations on creation. 
He rejected the preceding theories, and declared 
atoms, invisible, intangible, and indivisible, to be 
the primary elements ; thus anticipating, by a dream, 
one of the highest scientific conceptions of the pres- 
ent. The formation of things he attributed to des- 
tiny, but it is doubtful if he assigned intelligence to 
that destiny. The attempts to prove that he believed 
in an intelligence somewhat similar to the Anaxago- 
rian doctrine are not satisfactory ; and it is probable 
that the idea of a formative intelligence, held by all 
these early philosophers, has been over-drawn, and 
received an anthropomorphitic tinge from translators 
and commentators. 

We may smile at the boldness with which they 
rushed to the explanation of nature's profoundest 
secrets, but we cannot doubt their sincerity. They 
possessed few facts, and they did not use those they 
possessed. They trusted to intuition. The Greek 



86 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

mind, like that of a child, was deductive rather than 
inductive. It struck at first at primary principles. 
Not content with the life long-toil of the accumula- 
tion of facts, it made a direct dash at the underlying 
principles. As from generation to generation we 
observe its progress, it never throws off this incubus, 
but is filtered by its scorn of the primary instru- 
ments of thought, — facts. The Greeks are diligent 
inquirers, and merit the praise which has been be- 
stowed upon them ; but, the moment they philoso- 
phized, they cast facts aside. The daring strides they 
made widened the bounds of human thought, and, by 
the constant mental warfare they created, make these 
sages, scattered along a thousand years, shine in a 
splendid galaxy across the millenniums since they 
passed away. From the obscure wordings of their 
doctrines, we may be wide of their meaning in our 
translations. Of this much we are certain : the 
early sages scorned the idea of a god with human 
qualities. They probably had no conception of such 
a being. The idea of an infinite and all-pervading 
cause existed in their minds. Like the child, they 
asked "Why.?" "How.?" "Wherefore.?" They 
found no answer to the indefinable thoughts which 
existed inarticulate in their minds. The water of 
Thales, air of Anaximenes, the number of Pythago- 
ras, meant more than the words express. They stand 
for a great, unutterable thought. They stand for a 
struggle of a great soul endeavoring to express its 
half-formed, dimly seen ideas. Let us not smile, nor 
judge them, unless we first pass the gulf which di- 



Socrates. 87 

vides the clear and precise thought of the present 
from the half-articulate efforts of olden time. 

We now approach Socrates, the most renowned 
philosopher of Greece. His ideas of Deity, as ex- 
pressed by Xenophon,* were as follows : — 

" I will now relate the manner in which I once 
heard Socrates discoursing with Aristodemus, sur- 
named the Little, concerning the Deity ; for observ- 
ing that he neither prayed nor sacrificed to the gods, 
but, on the contrary, ridiculed and laughed at those 
who did, he said to him, — 

'* ' Tell me, Aristodemus, is there any man whom 
you admire on account of his merit t ' Aristodemus 
having answered, ' Many,' — ' Name some of them, I 
pray you.' — ' I admire,' said Aristodemus, ' Homer for 
his Epic poetry, Melanippides for his dithyrambics, 
Sophocles for tragedy, Polycetus for statuary, and 
Zeuxis for painting.' 

" *■ But which seems to you most worthy of admira- 
tion, Aristodemus, — the artist who forms images 
void of motion and intelligence, or one who hath the 
skill to produce animals that are endued not only with 
activity, but understanding .^ ' — ' The latter, there 
can be no doubt,' replied Aristodemus ; ^provided the 
production was not the effect of chance, but of wis- 
dom and contrivance.' — ' But since there are many 
things, some of which we can easily see the use of, 
while we cannot say of others to what purpose they 
were produced, — which of these, Aristodemus, do 
you suppose the work of wisdom V — 'It should seem 

* Memorabilia, i. 4, as rendered by Lewes. 



88 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

the most reasonable to affirm it of those whose fitness 
and utiUty are so evidently apparent/ 

" ' But it is evidently apparent that He who at the 
beginning made man endued him with senses be- 
cause they were good for him ; eyes, wherewith to 
behold whatever was visible ; and ears, to hear what- 
ever was to be heard ; for say, Aristodemus, to what 
purpose should odors be prepared if the sense of 
smelling had been denied ? or why the distinctions 
of bitter and sweet, of savory and unsavory, unless a 
palate had been likewise given, conveniently placed, 
to arbitrate between them, and declare the difference ? 
Is not that Providence, Aristodemus, in a most emi- 
nent manner conspicuous, which, because the eye of 
man is so delicate in its contexture, hath therefore 
prepared eyelids like doors, whereby to secure it, 
which extend of themselves whenever it is needful, 
and again close when sleep approaches ? Are not 
these eyelids provided, as it were, with a fence on the 
edge of them, to keep off the wind, and guard the 
eye ? Even the eyebrow itself is not without its 
office, but, as a pent-house, is prepared to turn off the 
sweat, which, falling from the forehead, might enter 
and annoy that no less tender than astonishing part 
of us. Is it not to be admired that the ears should 
take in sounds of every sort, and yet are not too 
much filled by them ; that the fore-teeth of the 
animal should be formed in such a manner as is evi- 
dently best suited for the cutting of its food, as those 
on the side for grinding it to pieces ; that the 
mouth, through which this food is conveyed, should 



Socrates. 89 

be placed so near the nose and eyes as to prevent 
the passing unnoticed whatever is unfit for nourish- 
ment ; while Nature, on the contrary, hath set at a 
distance, and concealed from the senses, all that might 
disgust or any way offend them ? And canst thou 
still doubt, Aristodemus, whether a disposition of 
parts like this should be the work of chance, or of 
wisdom and contrivance ? ' — 'I have no longer any 
doubt,' replied Aristodemus ; ' and, indeed, the more 
I consider it, the more evident it appears to me that 
man must be the masterpiece of some great artificer ; 
carrying along with it infinite marks of the love and 
favor of Him who hath thus formed it/ 

" 'And what thinkest thou, Aristodemus, of that de- 
sire in the individual which leads to the continuance 
of the species ; of that tenderness and affection in 
the female towards her young, so necessary for its 
preservation-; of that unrequited love of life, and 
dread of dissolution, which take such strong posses- 
sion of us from the moment we begin to be ? ' — 'I 
think of them,' answered Aristodemus, ' as so many 
regular operations of the same great and wise Artist 
deliberately determining to preserve what he hath 
made/ 

" ' But farther (unless thou desirest to ask me ques- 
tions), seeing, Aristodemus, thou thyself art con- 
scious of reason and intelligence, supposest thou 
there is no intelligence elsewhere ? Thou knowest 
thy body to be a small part of that wide extended 
earth which thou everywhere beholdest : the mois- 
ture contained in it, thou also knowest to be a small 



90 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

portion of that mighty mass of waters, whereof seas 
themselves are but a part, while the rest of the ele- 
ments contribute out of their abundance to thy for- 
mation. It is the soul then, alone, that intellectual 
part of us, which is come to thee by some lucky 
chance, from I know not where. If so, there is in- 
deed no intelligence elsewhere ; and we must be 
forced to confess, that this stupendous universe, with 
all the various bodies contained therein, — equally 
amazing, whether we consider their magnitude or 
number, whatever their use, whatever their order, — 
all have been produced, not by intelligence, but by 
chance.' — 'It is with difficulty that I can suppose 
otherwise,' returned Aristodemus: *for I behold none 
of those gods whom you speak of as making and 
governing all things ; whereas I see the artists when 
at their work here among us.' — * Neither yet seest 
thou thy soul, Aristodemus ; which, however, most 
assuredly governs thy body : although it may well 
seem, by thy manner of talking, that it is chance, 
and not reason, which governs thee.' 

" * I do not despise the gods,' said Aristodemus : 
'on the contrary, I conceive so highly of their 
excellence, as to suppose they stand in no need 
either of me or of my services.' — * Thou mistakest 
the matter, Aristodemus: the greater magnificence 
they have shown in their care of thee, so much 
the more honor and service thou owest them.' — 
* Be assured, ' said Aristodemus, ' if I once could 
be persuaded the gods take care of man, I should 
want no monitor to remind me of my duty.' — ' And 



The Divine in Man. 91. 

canst thou doubt, Aristodemus, if the gods take care 
of man ? Hath not the glorious privilege of walking 
upright been alone bestowed on him, whereby he 
may with the better advantage survey what is around 
him, contemplate with more ease those splendid ob- 
jects which are above, and avoid the numerous ills 
and inconveniences which would otherwise befall 
him ? Other animals indeed they have provided 
with feet, by which they may remove from one place 
to another ; but to man they have also given hands, 
with which he can form many things for his use, and 
make himself happier than creatures of any other 
kind. A tongue hath been bestowed on every other 
animal ; but what animal, except man, hath the 
power of forming words with it, whereby to explain 
his thoughts, and make them intelligible to others ? 

" ' But it is not with respect to the body alone that 
the gods have shown themselves thus bountiful to 
man. Their most excellent gift is that soul they 
have infused into him, which so far surpasses what 
is elsewhere to be found ; for by what animal, except 
man, is even the existence of those gods discovered, 
who have produced, and still uphold in such regular 
order, this beautiful and stupendous frame of the 
universe 1 What other species of creature is to be 
found that can serve, that can adore them 1 What 
other animal is able, like man, to provide against the 
assaults of heat and cold, of thirst and hunger ; that 
can lay up remedies for the time and of sickness, and 
improve the strength nature has given by a well- 
proportioned exercise ; that can receive, Hke him, 



92 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

information or instruction, or so happily keep in 
memory what he hath seen and heard and learned ? 
These things being so, who seeth not that man is, as 
it were, a God in the midst of this visible creation ? 
So far doth he surpass, whether in the endowments 
of soul or body, all animals whatsoever that have 
been produced therein : for, if the body of the ox had 
been joined to the mind of man, the acuteness of the 
latter would have stood him in small stead, while un- 
able to execute the well-designed plan ; nor would 
the human form have been of more use to the brute, 
so long as it remained destitute of understanding. 
But in thee, Aristodemus, hath been joined to a won- 
derful soul a body no less wonderful ; and sayest 
thou, after this, the gods take no thought for me ? 
What wouldst thou then more to convince thee of 
their care ? ' " 

He seems to have entertained the mechanical 
theory of nature, which Paley taught with such suc- 
cess, but now becoming obsolete. Such a being at 
once becomes a personality, a man. It can only be 
grasped by the mind after the loss of its infinite 
qualities. 

Euclid maintained that there was but one unut- 
terable being, to be known by reason only. This 
being was not simply The One^ nor simply intelli- 
gence : it was The Good, This being received various 
names : sometimes Wisdom, sometimes God, at oth- 
ers Reason. This one Good is the only thing which 
exists. All else is phenomenal and transitory. 

The doctrines of Plato, the ardent disciple of 



speculations of Plato. 93 

Socrates, have peculiar interest ; as they have been 
recently revived, and are considered by many as the 
most profound ever enunciated. They also exerted 
a great influence on infantile Christianity. Lewes 
presents the following masterly summary of his doc- 
trines : — 

" In the same way as Plato sought to detect the one 
amrflst the multiplicity of material phenomena, and, 
having detected it, declared it to be the real essence 
of matter, so also did he seek to detect the one 
amidst the multiplicity of ideas, and, having detected 
it, declared it to be God. What ideas were to phe- 
nomena, God was to ideas, — the last result of gener- 
alization. God was thus the One Being, comprising 
within himself all other beings ; the ^V xaf uoIIol ; the 
cause of all things, celestial and terrestrial. God 
was the supreme idea. Whatever view we take of 
the Platonic cosmology, — whether God created 
ideas, or whether he only fashioned unformed matter 
after the model of ideas, — we are equally led to the 
conviction, that God represented the supreme idea 
of all existence ; the great intelligence, source of all 
other intelligences ; the sun whose light illumined 
creation. God is perfect, ever the same, without en- 
vy, wishing nothing but good ; for, although a clear 
knowledge of God is impossible to mortals, an approx- 
imation to that knowledge is possible. We cannot 
know what he is : we can only know what he is like. 
He must be good, because self-sufficing ; and the 
world is good, because he made it. Why did he 
make it t God made the world because he was free 



94 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

from envy, and wished that all things should resem- 
ble him as much as possible : he therefore persuaded 
necessity to become stable, harmonious, and fash- 
ioned according to excellence. Yes, " persuaded " is 
Plato's word, — for there were two eternal principles, 
hitelligence and necessity; and from the mixture of 
these the world was made. But intelligence per- 
suaded necessity to be fashioned according to excel- 
lence. He arranged chaos into beauty ; but as 
there is nothing beautiful but intelligence, and as 
there is no intelligence without a soul, he placed a 
soul into the body of the world, and made the world 
an animal. 

*' Plato's proof of the world being an animal is too 
curious a specimen of his analogical reasoning to be 
passed over. There is warmth in the human being : 
there is warmth also in the world. The human be- 
ing is composed of various elements, and is there- 
fore called a body ; the world is also composed 
of various elements, and is therefore a body : and, 
as our bodies have souls, the body of the world 
must have a soul ; and that soul stands in the same 
relation to our souls as the warmth of the world 
stands to our warmth. Having thus demonstrated. 
the world to be an animal, it was but natural he 
should conceive that animal as resembling its Crea- 
tor, and human beings as resembling the universal 
animal, to nav l^coov. As soon as the world, that image 
of the eternal gods, — as soon as that vast animal be- 
gan to move, live, and think, God looked upon his 
work, and was glad. 



Platonic Solution of Problem of Evil 95 

'' But, although God in his goodness would have 
made nothing evil, he could* not prevent the exist- 
ence of it. Various disputes have been warmly 
carried on by scholars, respecting the nature of this 
evil which Plato was forced to admit. Some have 
conceived it nothing less than the Manichaean doc- 
trine. Thus much we may say : The notion of an an- 
tagonist principle is inseparable from every religious 
formula : as God can only be good, and as evil does 
certainly exist, it must exist independently of him ; 
it must be eternal. Plato cut the matter very short 
by his logical principle, — that, since there was a 
good, there must necessarily be the contrary of good ; 
namely, evil. If evil exists, how does it exist, and 
where? It cannot find place in the celestial region of 
ideas. It must therefore necessarily dwell in the ter- 
restrial region of phenomena : its home is the world — 
it is banished from heaven. And is not this logical 1 
What is the world of phenomena but an imperfect 
copy of the world of ideas ? and how can the imper- 
fect be the purely good "i When ideas are " realized,'* 
as the pantheists would say ; when ideas, pure, im- 
mutable essences, are clothed in material forms, or 
when matter is fashioned after the model of those 
ideas, — what can result but imperfections } The 
ideas are not in this world : they are only in a state 
of becomings ovrcag ovxa^ not pyvo^isva. Phenomena are 
in their very nature imperfect : they are perpetually 
striving to exist as realities. In their constitution 
there is something of the divine : an image of the 



96 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

Idea, and some participation in it ; but more of the 
primeval chaos. 

" Those, therefore, who say that Plato thought 
that ^ Evil was inherent in matter,' though express- 
ing themselves loosely, express themselves, on the 
whole, correctly. Matter was the great necessity 
which intelligence fashioned. Because it was neces- 
sity, and unintelligent, it was evil ; for intelligence 
alone can be good. 

" Now, as this world of phenomena is the region 
where evil dwells, we must use our utmost endeav- 
ors to escape from it. And how escape } By sui- 
cide t No : by leading the life of the gods. And 
every Platonist knows that the life of the gods con- 
sists in the eternal contemplation of truth, of ideas. 
Thus, as on every side, are we forced to encounter 
dialectics as the sole salvation of man. 

" From the above explanation of evil, it will be 
seen that there is no contradiction in Plato's saying, 
that the quantity of evil in this life exceeded that 
of the good : it exceeds it in the proportion that 
phenomena exceed noumena, that matter exceeds 
ideas. 

" But, although evil be a necessary part of the 
world, it is in constant struggle with good. What 
is this but the struggle of becoming ? And man is 
endowed with free will and intelligence : he may 
therefore choose between good and evil. And ac- 
cording to his choice will his future life be regulated. 
Metempsychosis was a doctrine Plato borrowed from 
Pythagoras ; and in that doctrine he could find argu- 



Ideas of the Stoics. 97 

,ments for the enforcement of a sage and virtuous 
life, which no other afforded at that epoch." 

The stoics said there two elements in nature. 
The first was primordial matter, out of which every- 
thing is formed. The second is the active creative 
principle, — reason, destiny, God. The divine reason 
acting on nature bestows the laws which govern it. 
God is the reason of the world. From this date 
they deduced their system of ethics. If the divine 
reason bestows the laws which govern matter, to live 
in conformity to reason must be the practical moral 
law ; and there is but one formula for morals, and that 
is, " Live harmoniously with nature." A better con- 
clusion, no matter from what data derived, cannot be 
attained. In the conflicting atmosphere of wordy 
dispute and rash speculation, it gleams like a living 
thought torn from the present. 

Thus far we have spoken only of the ideas of the 
sages, men of thought, who possessed all the know- 
ledge and culture of their times. There is another 
and more common view known as the mythology of 
Greece and Rome : the system known to the common 
people, and worked into form by the poets. The 
philosophers regarded the great truths of religion as 
too sacred to be given to the common people. They 
shrouded them with mystery. The myths they 
encouraged they did not themselves entertain. Just 
as at present there is a religious system, with creeds 
and dogmas and myths for the mass of the people, 
while the best thinkers of the age are above them, 
tolerating them only from policy and expediency. 



98 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

The cultivated nations of antiquity founded their. 
reHgion on mystery. Where and how the " Mys- 
teries '' were founded has created much discussion. 
Their origin is lost in the night of time. They were 
supported by the Egyptians, and perfected by the 
Greeks, growing, little by little, under the guidance 
of a priesthood, who, by dealing with things pertain- 
ing to the divine, came to be regarded as personally 
divine, and nearer the gods than other men. The 
priests were educated in all that was known in science 
and art. This knowledge, enveloped in a sacred dia- 
lect, and exciting reverence by its unintelligibility, 
was marshaled to work miracles before the terri- 
fied initiates. Electricity, fulminating compounds, 
hydrostatical pressure, and secret mechanical con- 
trivances, were commanded by their exhaustless 
wealth. Such charms and attractions were thrown 
around the system, so vividly were the secrets of 
life and death presented to the votary, that Cicero 
says, " Men came from the most distant shores to be 
initiated at Eleusis ; " and Sophocles remarks, " True 
life is to be found only among the initiates : all other 
places are full of evil." 

The Mysteries was the great church of the ancient 
world, in which concentrated all its spiritual ideas, 
around which clustered all its hopes, and from which 
Christianity drew the major part of its doctrines. 
The efforts of Julian to stay the tide of Christian 
reform, and restore the old doctrines ; the numerous 
protests furnished by history, — show how deeply 
rooted were the Mysteries in the hearts of the people. 



The Sacred Mysteries, 99 

What were these Mysteries ? From their secret 
character little can be gathered of their most esoteric 
parts ; but, from the allusions made by different 
classic authors, a faint idea can be gathered of their 
surpassing beauties and awful terrors. As celebrated 
at Eleusis, by their singular magnificence and impos- 
ing grandeur, they far eclipsed all others of the world, 
and ancient writers take delight in exalting, and with 
false learning gathering clouds around them. 

These Mysteries were established about fourteen 
centuries before Christ ; and such was their hold on 
the popular mind, that for eighteen hundred years 
they were celebrated, and were only abolished by the 
severity of the bigoted Theodosius the Great. He 
would not have the old faith linger otherwise than in 
the Church. During all that period, the Mysteries 
were held in superstitious reverence. If any one 
revealed the secrets intrusted at initiation, the ven- 
geance of the gods fell on his head, and it was 
deemed unsafe to dwell in the same house with such 
a wretch, whom, if the gods spared, was ignominiously 
put to death. The stigma of non-observance was far 
greater than that attending the infidelity at present. 
It was a weighty charge brought against Socrates, 
that he neglected the worship of the gods. 

Every five years, all Athens assembled at Eleusis, 
in Attica, to celebrate those solemnities. The vast 
concourse gathered on the plains, around a splendid 
temple erected over a cavern, in which, at an earlier 
day, the rites were first held. This cave was exca- 
vated into a labyrinth of passages, in which tht* 



lOO Career of the God-Idea in History. 

novitiate could be led through darkness, until bewil- 
dered and overcome with terror and fatigue. This 
temple was of the purest Doric architecture, its end- 
less colonnades chiseled from snowy marble, without 
spot or stain. It stood on a swell of ground, and 
could be seen, rising in crystal beauty, by all the 
mighty multitude. Over its front was a colossal 
head of Jupiter, calm, beneficent, all-powerful. On 
either side a statue of Ceres smiled on the passing 
worshiper. 

All the effect produced by grandeur of architec- 
ture, or beauty of form, was lavishly bestowed. Per- 
sons of both sexes, and without regard to age, were 
initiated. They had first to enter the lesser mysteries 
of Agrae on a previous year ; then, at the expiration 
of which, subject themselves to a rigid system of 
purification. For nine days they bathed and fasted, 
keeping themselves uncontaminated by the world. 
Then they presented themselves before the temple 
of the greater mystery. Athens has assembled ; old 
men and young, husband and wife, and prattling 
babe. Athens has betaken herself to the field for a 
time, to indulge in free communion with nature and 
the divine spirits whom she believes govern the 
world. Those who await initiation — the indoctrin- 
ization into their subtile wisdom - — have crowns of 
flowers, and offer sacrifices and prayers. Under 
their feet they wear the skin of some animal offered 
to Jupiter. Then they offered a sow to Ceres, in 
thankfulness for the influence for good she exerts. 

They were then prepared to enter the presence of 



The Sacred Mysteries. loi 

the gods, having overcome the sins of the body. 
Night settles over the mountains of the most beau- 
tiful spot on earth. They silently repose, overlooked 
by the brilliant stars. A multitude of fires glimmer 
over the plain, but the people have gone to the tem- 
ple. They are assisting the uninitiated in their first 
lessons. With crowns of myrtle, these were led into 
the temple. At the door was a fount of holy water, 
in which they washed. Above this, in a recess, sat 
a priest. With a calm, low, but terrible voice, he 
asked the candidates, one by one, the following ques- 
tions, all of which they must answer in the affirma- 
tive, or be at once expelled : " Have you passed the 
mystery of the Agrae 'i Are you pure and spotless 
from the world t Are you free from crime t " Then, 
in an impressive tone, he chanted, " He who enters 
must be pure, or the gods will destroy him. He 
who passes this portal goes into a shadow, from 
which only the just return. O weak, thoughtless, 
and improvident mortal, daring to penetrate the 
realm of the gods, aspire to truth and perfection, and 
strive to discard the flesh and the world." 

Then they were led onward, in front of a lofty 
tribunal, when the mysteries, or laws, were read to 
them. These were written on two stones cemented 
together. Then they were led before another tribu- 
nal, more lofty and imposing than the other. Above 
it was a zone, on which was painted the twelve signs 
of the zodiac : on its front was a blazing sun, on 
either side of which was a winged globe. The in- 
tense light beneath revealed the priest seated in an 



I02 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

ivory chair, his dark mantle embroidered with gold, 
and a silver crown on his temples. All else was 
blackness and profoundest gloom. The awe-struck 
initiates could see nothing but the form of the priest 
glittering in the terrible darkness. As they paused 
before him, he asked them a series of questions 
referring to the conduct of their lives. When they 
were answered, he waved them onward into the pro- 
found gloom. 

As they advanced, a terrific blast extinguished 
their dim torches ; the darkness became stifling ; 
the trembling worshiper was blinded with lightning, 
that seemed to hiss through the void. The crash of 
thunders deafened their ears ; the earth swayed and 
quaked under their feet, and from its bowels came 
the most frightful bowlings and moanings, as of 
myriads of lost souls writhing in the agony of 
scorching flames. Out of the darkness leaped spec- 
tres of gigantic and awful outline. Sometimes these 
shades threatened to destroy the pale and trembling 
worshiper : at others, they mockingly laughed and 
derided, and the vaulted rocks echoed their demoniac 
merriment. Then others would spring up, like a 
body of flame, and as instantly disappear. Then a 
thousand would arise out of the blackness, and with 
a sound of a whirlwind rush towards the intruders. 
As they came near, they vanished, and the place was 
left in night, and from afar came the most dismal and 
terrifying wails. 

Such were the sufferings of those who were un- 
true to the Mysteries, by revealing the secrets there 



The Sacred Mysteries, 103 

revealed, of those who were unjust and evil on earth, 
and who disregarded the rights of their fellow-men. 
No one, not even the stoutest-hearted soldier, 
imbued with superstition as they were, could endure 
the terrible ordeal. They sank, stupefied, on the 
marble floor, and stared vacantly at the horrid forms 
of men, the flying dragons and scorpions, the huge 
and ravenous beasts and birds of prey, which winged 
hissingly above them. Their hair stood upright, the 
cold perspiration beaded on their rigid foreheads. 
Their guide assumed the form of a demon ; and they 
arose, and mechanically followed through long and 
winding passages and labyrinthine mazes. Hoarse 
voices shouted and shrieked behind them, to seize 
and destroy the outcasts, — to drag them with vul- 
ture-beaks into the abysm of fire. The hissing of 
their breath was close upon them ; the swift sound 
of myriads smote the ear ; their very touch could be 
felt by the initiate, too frightened to escape. Then 
in an instant light broke in a glittering flood of silver 
over the scene. They stood in a magnificent hall, 
lighted from an azure dome above, by a light like the 
sun s. Marble pillars supported it on every side, be- 
tween which, in various attitudes, the gods and god- 
desses were chiseled from Parian. Surges of most 
exquisite melody filled the place, and thrilled the 
soul with its perfection. With unspeakable joy they 
beheld a being clothed in white, with silver embroi- 
dery, descending from a throne, and, taking each by 
the hand, pronounce the words, " It is finished." * 
* Apaleius. 



1 04 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

Out of the blackness and turmoil ; out of the in- 
sane madness, the death-grappling of this life ; out of 
its seething trials, and groans of anguish, its night 
of sorrow and pain, — comes the light, the bright 
day of joy, the beautiful day of peace and ever- 
enduring happiness. In ourselves we are nothing. 
The gods are all in all. Rely on their guidance, and 
reject the sham of this life. Such was the lesson 
burned into the heart ; branded indelibly into the 
fibres of the soul. 

All that was awful, terrific, amazing, dreadful, was 
presented; and after it the sinking soul was lifted 
to heaven, on the wings of all that please and de- 
light. 

What were the words read from the tablets of 
stone, for which these mysteries were an introduc- 
tion and a safeguard 1 So profoundly was the 
knowledge of them concealed, that historians have 
never obtained a syllable. They were, probably, the 
rules for moral conduct, similar to those which Moses 
gave the Israelites, — principles which man early 
learns, and which naturally arrange themselves into 
a moral code. 

The Mysteries were celebrated for nine days, dur- 
ing which all distinctions of rank and wealth were 
abolished. Lycurgus passed a law that any woman 
who should attend in a chariot should be fined six 
thousand drachmas. These nine days were filled 
with interesting and curious episodes. The meet- 
ing on the first day was that of a social gathering. 
Afterwards they bathed in the sea, to purify them- 



The Sacred Mysteries. 105 

selves ; offered a sacrifice to the gods, and a small 
quantity of barley to Ceres, the goddess of the har- 
vest. Every ceremony had a meaning to the enthu- 
siastic worshipers. The processions following the 
basket of Ceres, of women carrying the various 
products of the earth, the pausing on the bridge 
Cephissus to deride the passer-by, the games where- 
in the reward for the victor was a measure of barley, 
possessed meanings, which, however dim to us, were 
significant to their votaries. 

They have been charged with immorality by big- 
oted sectaries who wished thereby to prove the ne- 
cessity of revelation ; but the concurrent voice of 
antiquity confirms their pure morality. Men like 
Plato, Sophocles, Lycurgus, and Cicero, eulogize 
their influence. Minor branches may have de- 
scended to vile practices ; but it was always said 
of the great Mysteries, that they purified the heart, 
inspired and calmed the mind, and, with an exalted 
morality, taught the hopes of sublime realities of a 
higher life. * 

Such was the religion Christianity supplanted, not 
Judaism. From it was drawn the primary doctrines 
of the Orthodox faith, such as the trinity, the incar- 
nation, the resurrection of the dead, the atonement, 
hell, heaven, purgatory, and the judgment-day. 

Such was the magnificent esoteric. system of the 
ancients. It was only open to the aristocrats of in- 
tellect. The commonality received another form 
more consistent with their mental conceptions 

* Cicero. De. Leg., lib. ii. cap. xiv« 



io6 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

With them Jupiter ruled the vaults of air, Neptune 
the ocean, and Pluto the dark and shadowy under- 
world. From the Thunderer on high Olympus, down 
the interminable distance to man, there was a succes- 
sion of deities, possessing all grades of intelligence 
and power. Some writers argue that these myths 
were inventions of priests, and others that they are 
symbolic : both explanations are unnecessary, for 
they are spontaneous creations of a buoyant fancy, 
brought in its youth and immaturity in contact with 
the startling phenomena of nature. Poetry ruled. 
Rocks, rivers, streams, woods, trees, fountains, all 
were personified. The child afraid of the dark per- 
sonifies night, and fear of the dark forest peoples the 
wood with dryads. 

The " Mysteries " are of a much later growth. 
There can be no priests until the accumulation of a 
rude mythology renders their mediation necessary. 

Jupiter was regarded by the people as the central 
power, gathering around him the other deities in a 
family of the gods. He assigns their provinces, and 
controls their power. Their combined efforts do not 
change his purpose, and even when he rebukes them 
the serenity of his soul is undisturbed. His might 
is irresistible, and his wisdom unsearchable. He 
holds the golden balance in which is poised the des- 
tiny of nations and men. The eternal order of 
events and earthly kings receive their power from 
him. But, omnipotent and infinite as he is repre- 
sented, he has his human side, and is subject to all 
the passions. 



The Family of the Gods. 107 

Though secure from dissolution, and exceedingly 
beautiful and strong, and warmed with a purer blood, 
his celestial power is sensible to pleasure and pain. 
In common with all the inferior gods, he needs the 
refreshment of ambrosial food, and the savor of sac- 
rifices is grateful to him. He loves, hates, is jealous, 
wavers in his purposes, is overreached by artifice, 
blinded by desire, and, by resentment, hurried into 
disreputable violence. * 

He is nothing more than a Greek intensified and 
given the largest ideal power. 

As the gods are in every respect human, the an- 
cients believed that to gain their favor required the 
same manners as to approach a powerful mortal, - — 
homage and tribute ; or, in the language of reli- 
gion, worship and sacrifice. The gods were re- 
galed with the fragrance from the altar ; and, the 
more sumptuous the offering, the better were they 
pleased. If the god was thought angry, the offering 
was unusually large. If exceedingly wroth, nothing 
less than a human life would serve the purpose. 
With the Greeks, the immolation of human victims 
was early discarded for milder forms ; but there can 
be no doubt but their altars were once stained with 
human gore, as were those of all the surrounding 
nations. 

Jupiter, the supreme, becomes the father of the 
inferior gods and goddesses. Minerva sprang from 
his head ; Themis bore him the Seasons and Fates ; 
the ocean-nymph Eurynome bore him the Graces ; 

* Thirwall. 



io8 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

Ceres, by him, became mother of Proserpine ; Mne- 
mosyne, of the Muses ; Latona, of Apollo and Diana ; 
and his last wife, Juno, bore him Mars, Hebe, and 
Slithgia. Homer says that Venus was the daugh- 
ter of Jupiter and Dione. Mortal women also bore 
him a numerous progeny, and his purposes were 
often effected by disguise and deceit. 

The application of this, to the supreme God may 
seem sacrilegious ; but we must remember, and pass 
judgment with proper reservation, that Jehovah the 
Supreme God is represented in the Bible with human 
passions and frailties. He ate " veal " with Abra- 
ham ; "wrestled'* with Jacob; talked familiarly with 
Moses on the most common topics ; smelt a '* sweet 
savor '* from the burning sacrifice ; " repented " 
making man ; was cruel, wrathful, jealous, and re- 
vengeful. 

We have in this chapter condensed the progress 
of opinions in relation to God of nearly a thousand 
years. From the simple conception of water as the 
Infinite, to the Eternal Infinite Intelligence of Socra- 
tes, is a gulf spurned by the most gigantic labors of 
the human mind. We shall now see how these lines 
of advance converge, and re-appeaf through the 
Alexandrian school in Christianity. 



VI. 



THE GOD-IDEA OF THE ALEXANDRIAN SCHOOL 
AND EARLY CHRISTIANITY 

Those who adore me devoutly are in me, and I in them. Crishna is at 
all times present everywhere ; just as fire, though concealed in wood. — 
Bhagavat Geeta. 

To know that God is, and that all is God, this is the substance of the 
Vedas. — Vedas. 

Every violet blooms of God; each lily is fragrant with the presence of 
Deity. The awful scenes of storm and lightning and thunder seem but 
the eternal sounds of the great concert, wherewith God speaks to man. 

Parker. 

I HAD foolishly hoped that I should soon behold the Deity. 

Justin Martyr. 

THE Alexandrian school of Dialectics stood be- 
tween the philosophers and the Christian 
world. In its teachings we discover the dawn of 
those abstruse speculations which early engaged the 
church fathers in never-ending discussion. 

Philo was the first of the Neo-Platonists. A Jew 
by birth, he mingled, in a strange mysticism, Greek 
philosophy and Oriental imagination. He dis- 
trusted the truth of sensuous knowledge, and denied 
the value of reason as a criterion of truth. He be- 
lieved in a higher faculty in man, which he called 
faith. 

He taught that God is ineffable and incomprehen- 



no Career of the God-Idea in History. 

sible. We may learn his existence, but not his na- 
ture. The simple knowledge that he exists, in it- 
self, is the knowledge of his being one, perfect, 
immutable, and without attribute. But this is not a 
knowledge of the elements of his perfection. This 
finite eye cannot penetrate. We can only believe. 
If we cannot learn this, we can his essence. We 
learn this in the LogoSy or word. The word forms a 
strange feature in the mystical system, and was in- 
serted in the Bible. God being wholly inapproach- 
able, there must be something intermediate between 
him and man, and this is supplied by the word. 
According to Philo, the word is God's thought. This 
thought is twofold. The thought embracing all 
ideas, and the realized thought : thought became the 
world. In this statement, the trinity of Plotinus is 
foreshadowed : first, God the Father ; second, God 
the Son, or the word ; and, third, the World. He 
agreed with the Cabalists, that there was a mother 
of the universe, whom he called Sophia, or wisdom. 
Ideas or types, according to which the Logos formed 
the world, originated from the two. The Logos he 
calls " the Son of God," " the express image of God." 
No created being resembled the Supreme Father. 
Man was created in the image of the Logos. Such 
were the vague dreams of one who lived near the 
eventful dawn of the present era. Plotinus, who per- 
haps represents the school better than any other of 
its adherents, held, with Plato, that there could be but 
one science of universals. Individual things were but 
phenomena swiftly passing away ; had no real exist- 



speculations of Plotinus. 1 1 1 

ence, and were hence unworthy of the attention of 
the philosopher. Ideas were the only universals. 
The ideal world is the perfect expression of the 
mode of God's existence. The sensible world is un- 
real to us through our senses. Of the ideal we gain 
glimpses through the reminiscence which the sensi- 
ble world awakens ; but how are we to take the last 
step } how are we to understand the Deity 1 

As we are finite beings, to comprehend the Infi- 
nite, we must become infinite ourselves. It cannot 
be through reason ; w^hich necessarily is finite, and 
embraces only finite objects. It must be through 
some higher and altogether impersonal faculty which 
identifies with its object. * 

The only possible ground for knowledge is the 
identity of subject and object, or, in other words, of 
the thought with the thing thought of Knowledge 
and being are identical. 

" If," says Plotinus, " knowledge is the same as 
the thing known, the finite, as finite, can never know 
the Infinite, because it cannot be the Infinite. To 
attempt, therefore, to know the Infinite by reason is 
futile : it can only be known in immediate presence. 
The faculty by which the mind divests itself of its 
personality is ecstasy. In this ecstasy the soul be- 
comes freed from its material prison, separated from 
individual consciousness, and becomes absorbed in 
the infinite intelligence from which it emanated. In 
this ecstasy it contemplates real existence : it iden- 
tifies itself with that which it contemplates." 

* Plotinus, En. v. lib. 5, c. 10. 



112 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

This speculation, while it savors of Platonism, in- 
dicates its Oriental origin. Thus the Alexandrians 
answered the world-old question, " How do we know 
God?" 

That man has a knowledge of God, is proof that 
there is some method of obtaining such knowledge. 
Reason is inadequate because finite. It must be 
obtained through ecstasy, in which the soul lost its 
conscious individuality, and came in contact with, 
and was absorbed by, the infinite intelligence. To 
understand the Infinite, man must for the moment 
become the Infinite. 

Absurd as this conslusion appears, it is not as ab- 
surd as the opposite, which degrades the Infinite, 
instead of exalting the finite. It is not as absurd as 
the anthropomorphic, which is universally entertained 
by Christendom. 

The Alexandrian school, in their speculations on 
the nature of the Infinite, furnished material for the 
church dogma of the holy trinity ; the basis, as 
M. Saisset remarks, of all Christian metaphysics. 
Almost all the important heresies have grown out of 
it, and therefore it is of deep interest to determine 
its parentage. It is maintained by one party, that 
the church received it from the Alexandrians ; and, 
by another, that the latter received it from Christi- 
anity. The first party are certainly in the right, for 
the doctrine is traceable through preceding centuries 
of thought, and in that school is more completely 
developed. 

The doctrine of the trinity may be stated thus : 



speculations of the Alexandrians. 113 

God is three, and at the same time is one. His 
nature contains within itself three distinct sub- 
stances, — that is, persons, — which make one being. 
The first is not being, nor the one being, but sim- 
ply unity. The second is intelligence, which is iden- 
tical with being. The third is universal soul, cause 
of all activity and life. * These strange and seem- 
ingly conflicting conceptions are obtained by an in- 
genious method of reasoning. Man looks abroad 
over the realm of nature, and sees change every- 
where. This change is not fortuitous, as the most 
cursory investigation shows, but proceeds to fixed 
ends and purposes. He asks for the cause, and the 
most apparent is life. The world is alive with a life 
similar in kind to his own. Proceeding farther in 
the investigation, and inquiring into the origin of 
life, he finds that it is motion. But this motion does 
not work by chance. It is directed, and directed 
intelligently. Here, then, is the cause he has been 
seeking : it is intelligent motion. What is this but 
the wonderful power residing in man himself.^ 
What is it but a soul } Is it not a fragment like in 
kind, different only in degree, from the universal 
and eternal soul of the world } And what is this 
universal and eternal soul, but God } This is the 
first person of the Alexandrian trinity. 

But men who were bred in the schools of Plato, 
and Aristotle could not rest here. Trained to- 
wrestle with the most abstract thoughts, they soon 
discovered that the term "intelligent activity" was 

* Biog. His. Philosophy, Lewes, p. 321. 



1 1 4 Career of the God-Idea in History, 

capable of farther reduction. There are two distinct 
ideas expressed. Intelligence is referable to the 
mind of some intelligent being. Motion is the di- 
vine soul ; intelligence, the divine mind. It is pure 
thought abstracted from all thinking. It does not 
reason, for to reason is to acquire knowledge. It 
sees the consequence simultaneously with the prem- 
ises. It is eternal existence embracing all ideas. 
Here, seemingly, is the ultimate of abstraction, — pure 
thought abstracted from thinking, and pure being 
abstracted from existence ; but the Alexandrian Di- 
alecticians saw a still higher form. God, as exist- 
ence and thought, is God as conceived by human 
reason ; only a hint of the pure unity, its highest 
ideal. Its type is human reason. An examination 
of thought reveals that to think is to distinguish 
our existence from some other existence. But noth- 
ing can be external with God. In him there can be 
no distinction, determination, nor relation. Hence, 
he must be superior to thought, or being ; must be 
a unity, which is not existence nor intelligence. 
Unity is omnipresent, and the bond which unites all 
complex things, the absolute universal one. It is 
the highest perfection and supreme good. 

Plotinus saw that God was not defined by this 
effort of logic. What he really is cannot be known. 
It is folly to strive to comprehend him. What is 
this unity } It is " absolute negation ; " it is the ul- 
timate of logic ; what Hegel would call the '' abso- 
lute nothing," the immanent negative. There only 
can the mind rest ; for, when it predicates anything 



Why God Creates. 115 

of the point at which it stops, it is forced to admit 
something beyond. Its course is roughly drawn by 
the fable of the world resting on the back of an ele- 
phant, that stands on the back of a tortoise, that 
reposed on nothing. At the absolute negation only, 
can such logic find repose. 

Plotinus had discovered the necessity of unity as 
the basis of existence. If the unity had ever re- 
mained alone, the many could not have been created. 
The many implies the one, as the one implies the 
many. Each principle engenders that which follows 
a power ineffable, and exercised from generation to 
generation, till its utmost limits are attained. 

The Christians were satisfied by saying, God 
created the universe by the simple effort of his will ; 
for with omnipotence all things are possible, and 
one effort is no greater than another. The Alex- 
andrians said that the world was a manifestation of 
God. It is distinct from, yet a part of, God. 

A ready answer was found for the question, " Why 
should God create } " Aristotle says, ** A God who 
does not think is unworthy of respect. If intelligent, 
he must be active. A force, to be such, must engen- 
der something.'* The creation, therefore, springs from 
the very nature of God. He is of necessity a cre- 
ator. He is like a sun, constantly throwing off rays, 
without diminution of substance. All change, the 
ceaseless flux and reflux of things, is perishable, and 
has no absolute truth or duration. To die is to live. 
It is to throw off the individuality with its pitiable 
limitations of space and time, and be absorbed into 



1 1 6 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

the bosom of the Infinite One. In the momentary 
thrills of ecstasy the soul is thus for the time ab- 
sorbed, and feels the exquisite rapture of the immor- 
tal being, and becomes conscious of the divine light 
struggling to break through the fetters of flesh, and 
free itself. Imbued with such conceptions, the dy- 
ing Plotinus exclaims, " I am struggling to liberate 
the divinity within me." 

The slow development of these convictions in re- 
gard to God, and man's position and relations, is ob- 
servable through long centuries of painful thought. 
All the great minds, from Heraclites to Plotinus, 
were oppressed by a sense of their own littleness, 
and the fruitlessness of the attempt to arrive at ab- 
solute truth. They felt a contempt for themselves, 
and hence the popularity of the stoics and cynics. 
This life is nothing, the future is the all. But we 
love life too well to destroy it. We are too mysteri- 
ously connected with the web of the world to cast it 
from us ; but we can become moral suicides, and 
hence asceticism. If man cannot command courage 
to leave the world, he can withdraw himself from its 
influence. He can become a stylite, or a hermit. 

Greek philosophy expired with the Alexandrian 
school. Beginning with Thales, it stretches over 
the long centuries in a complete circle of endeavor. 
However successful in other fields, in the solution of 
the nature of God, it made scarcely any advance. 
Mistaking the path of true investigation, its colossal 
genii wandered over an arid desert, boundless, awful, 
enchanting, but destitute of life or beauty. Thales 



Failure of the Greek Sages. 1 1 7 

at the threshold saw as clearly as they who came 
seven centuries after him. They failed in solving 
this problem : but the human mind was cultivated by 
their efforts, as an athlete is strengthened for useful 
labor by the exertions of the gymnasium ; and the 
soil was prepared for the true method. 

They elevated ethics to the rank of a science, and 
extended the exceedingly narrow views of morality 
entertained by the Greeks, and prepared the way for 
the reception of those more perfect and complete 
conceptions of individual responsibilities and social 
relations known as Christianity. 

From the portico of the philosopher these ques- 
tions passed to the early Christians, who, in the ar- 
dent fervor of a new belief, sought their solution by 
ecstasy more than by reason. 

Plato, unable to solve the problem how from a di- 
vine unity the diversity of creation could arise, ana- 
lized this unity into three parts, — the cause, the rea- 
son or Logos, and the soul or spirit of the universe. 
These metaphysical abstractions in his ardent imagi- 
nation were clothed with personality, and consid- 
ered as three gods, united with each other by mys- 
terious and ineffable generation. The Logos was 
the Son of the eternal Father and Creator, and 
Governor of the world. This doctrine was received 
and exemplified by the Alexandrian school, where 
the Mosaic doctrines met Grecian philosophy on 
equal grounds. The belief was a simple abstraction 
until the incarnation of the Logos in the person of 
Christ demonstrated its truth to the astonished Pa- 



1 1 8 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

gans. The theology of Plato, anticipating by three 
hundred years that of Christ, naturally excited the 
curiosity of the early Christians, and by them was 
eagerly studied. 

The mysterious triad, or trinity, was vehemently 
agitated in the schools of Alexandria. With intense 
curiosity they sought the solution, but with results 
disproportioned to the labor expended. The great 
Athanasius confesses that in the vast undertaking 
he is lost, and that the more he thinks the less he 
understands. When the human mind measures it- 
self with the Infinite, it comprehends how inade- 
quate are its powers. 

Yet it was the boast of Tertullian that a Christian 
mechanic understood this subject better than a Gre- 
cian sage ; and it may be truly said, that, when the 
subject is so great, there is slight difference between 
what the wise or the foolish know. The salvation 
of the soul depended on the reception of this doc- 
trine ; and the more ignorant a person was, the more 
unthinkingly was the doctrine received. 

The trinity was the only escape of the early 
fathers who claimed the divinity of Christ. This 
was early made ; as the Christians of Bithynia, only 
fourscore years after the death of Christ, declared 
before the tribunal of Pliny that they received Christ 
as a god, and worshiped him as such. They could 
not believe that the Great Eternal One had become 
incarnated. They held the worship of a created be- 
ing in horror, but the Platonic trinity completely 
met the difficulty. It was gratifying to contemplate 



Three Aspects of the Trinity. 119 

the Supreme as undisturbed, while the Logos be- 
came incarnated and a mediator between God and 
man. 

The disputants at first confined themselves more 
to the distinctions than the quality of the persons of 
the Godhead ; but they afterwards exhausted the 
latter subject as well. They next investigated the 
eternity of the Logos, and the wild flames of ecclesi- 
astical discord were awakened. The learned, pure, 
and blameless Arius preached the unity of God, and 
was condemned as a heretic, a sentence confirmed 
by the Council of Nice. 

When this subject is investigated, it is found to 
receive three distinct forms in the human mind, and 
is presented by Gibbon in the following masterly 
manner : — * 

*' L According to the first hypothesis, which was 
maintained by Arius and his disciples, the Logos was 
a dependent and spontaneous production, created 
from nothing by the will of the Father. The Son, 
by whom all things were made, had been begotten 
before all worlds, and the longest of the astronomi- 
cal periods could be compared only as a fleeting mo- 
ment to the extent of his duration ; yet this dura- 
tion was was not infinite, and there had been a time 
which preceded the ineflable generation of the Logos. 
On this only-begotten Son the Almighty Father had 
transfused his ample spirit, and impressed the efful- 
gence of his glory. Visible image of invisible per- 
fection, he saw, at an immeasurable distance beneath 

* Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. 



1 20 Career of the God-Idea iit. History. 

his feet, the thrones of the brightest archangels : yet 
he shone only with a reflected light ; and like the 
sons of the Roman emperors, who were invested 
with the titles of Caesar or Augustus, he governed 
the universe in obedience to the will of his Father 
and Monarch. 

" II. In the second hypothesis, the Logos pos- 
sessed all the inherent, incommunicable perfections, 
which religion and philosophy appropriate to the 
Supreme God. Three distinct and infinite minds or 
substances, three co-equal and co-eternal beings, 
composed the Divine Essence ; and it would not 
have implied contradiction, that any of them should 
not have existed, or that they should ever cease to 
exist. The advocates of a system which seemed to 
establish three independent deities attempted to 
preserve the unity of the first cause, so conspicuous 
in the design and order of the world, by the perpet- 
ual concord of their administration and the essen- 
tial agreement of their will. A faint resemblance 
of this unity of action may be discovered in the so- 
cieties of men, and even of animals. The causes 
which disturb their harmony proceed only from the 
imperfection and inequality of their faculties : but 
the omnipotence which is guided by infinite wisdom 
and goodness cannot fail of choosing the same 
means for the accomplishment of the same ends. 

"III. Three Beings, who, by the self-derived ne- 
cessity of their existence, possess all the divine at- 
tributes in the most perfect degree ; who are eternal 
in duration, infinite in space, and intimately present 



Attempts to Escape. 121 

to each other, and to the whole universe, — irresisti- 
bly force themselves on the astonished mind, as one 
and the same Being, who, in the economy of grace, 
as well in that of nature, may manifest himself under 
different forms, and be considered under different 
aspects. By this hypothesis, a real substantial trin- 
ity is refined into a trinity of names and abstract 
modifications, that subsist only in the mind which 
conceives them. The Logos is no longer a person, 
but an attribute ; and it is only in a figurative sense 
that the epithet of Son can be applied to the eternal 
reason which was with God from the beginning, and 
by whichy not by whom, all things were made. The 
incarnation of the Logos is reduced to a mere inspi- 
ration of the divine wisdom, which filled the soul, 
and directed all the actions, of the man Jesus. Thus, 
after revolving round the theological cycle, we are 
surprised to find that the Sabellian ends where the 
Ebionite had begun ; and that the incomprehensible 
mystery, which excites our adoration, eludes our in- 
quiry." 

As drowning men grasp at straws, these early dis- 
putants seized the most fanciful resemblances to 
support their conflicting claims. Augustine consid- 
ered the creation of the world in six days as a proof 
of the trinity, because " six days is twice three." 

Ambrose argued that " Jesus appeared to be the 
son of a carpenter to signify that Christ the Son 
was the maker of all things. The Arians quoted the 
early fathers to prove that there was a time when the 
Son did not exist ; but this idea was decided to be 



122 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

heresy. Then arose the question, if Christ was co- 
eternal with God, how came he to say, *' Of that hour 
knoweth no man ; no, not even the Son, but only the 
Father." This difficulty was removed by the Coun- 
cil of Chalcedon, which decided that Christ pos- 
sessed two perfectly harmonizing natures, the divine 
and the human. As God^. he knew everything ; but, 
as a man, many things were concealed from him. 

The ancient unbelievers in the divinity of Christ 
continually asked why the prophets and apostles, 
or Christ himself, had not spoken definitely on the 
trinity ; and why he only made the most vague allu- 
sions to it. Some of the fathers replied, it was on 
account of the material tendency of the Jews ; and 
others, that it was necessary to keep the Devil igno- 
rant of the fact. 

Athanasius says, ** that the apostles were ignorant 
of his being God ; *' and Chrysostom thought it ab- 
solutely necessary for them to have been ignorant. 
All the fathers agree that for this design it was ne- 
cessary for Mary to have a nominal husband. 

They seized the Egyptian mystical numbers as 
proof. The number three, the Deity in his com- 
pleteness. One of the most ancient symbols in 
Egypt and Hindostan, of the Infinite, was a triangle 
with an eye in the centre. The Hindoos represent 
their three great gods by an image with three faces. 
The Cabalists expressed the idea of Plato in Hebrew 
style by Jehovah, the wisdom of Jehovah, and the 
habitation of Jehovah. In all countries, philosophers 



speculations of Origen. 123 

and mystics have yielded ascent to the idea that God 
was one in three. 

The Arians, followers of the great and exemplary 
Arius, believed, either without reserve or according 
to the Scriptures, that the Son differed from all other 
creatures, and was similar only to the Father. But 
he denied that he was of the same or similar sub- 
stance. The dispute between the Athanasians and 
Arians was not an unity or trinity, so much as the 
word " substance," and other verbal distinctions. But 
these were sufficient cause for endless dispute, and 
the life of Athanasius was consumed in his opposition 
to the madness of Arius and the promulgation of a 
doctrine eventually to triumph. 

Origen acknowledged a personal God, within 
whose consciousness all things that exist are em- 
braced ; who created by the exercise of his will. 
The Logos was to the Father what reason is in 
man. He was the concentration of the glory of 
God, reflected from thence to the world of spirit ; 
the agent employed in creating the world ; the 
truth, the wisdom. The Holy Spirit was the divine 
energy of Deity : with the Son it was as much exalt- 
ed above all other spiritual existences as the Father 
was above them. He considered Christ a perfect 
man with a rational soul, a sensitive soul, and a body 
like other men. The Logos united himself with 
Christ's rational soul. By this means the Logos 
came into communication with the sensuous nature, 
and Christ received divine power. The Holy Spirit 
descended on Christ at his baptism. 



124 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

The minds of the early converts were prepared 
by their Pagan behefs to receive the doctrine of the 
incarnation of Christ. They beheved that the 
spirits of sages and heroes watched over the v/elfare 
of their favorite people, and hence their deification. 
That these spirits could return and become incar- 
nated was also universally received. 

The incarnation was not of doubtful solution, but 
its manner in this particular instance became as dif- 
ficult of solution as the trinity itself The Ebion- 
ites were deeply imbued with the material ideas 
of the Jews in regard to a temporal Messiah. They 
could not invest the son of a carpenter with divin- 
ity. If, as some supposed, he was an offspring of a 
virgin and the Holy Ghost, then, with faculties en- 
larged by the Father to meet every requirement, he 
was super-mortal. But those who had conversed 
with Christ as with a friend, had seen him mature 
from infancy, could not free themselves from the 
prejudice of their senses, which declared him like 
other men. 

When the doctrine of his divinity was transplanted 
from the sterile soil of Syria to Rome, where men 
had not come in direct contact with Christ or his 
apostles, it met a ready acceptance. The philoso- 
phers of that age were accustomed to contemplate 
a long succession, an infinite chain, of angels or dei- 
ties, as emanations from the eternal. The incarna- 
tion of a god was not out of the supposed order. 
They were prepared to receive the doctrine of a iiew 
and recent advent of the Logos. They were too 



Repugnance to Matter. 125 

deeply impressed with the inherent corruption of 
matter to suppose the pure spirit could come in di- 
rect contact with it. They sacrificed the humanity 
of Christ to his divinity. While his blood was still 
recent on Calvary, the Docetes, a numerous and 
learned sect of Asiatics, broached the system which 
afterwards became famous under the various names 
of the Gnostic sects. They summarily denied all 
those parts of the gospel relating to the birth and 
youth of Christ, claiming that he first appeared on 
the banks of the Jordan in perfect manhood, but in 
appearance only. He was an illusion created by the 
hand of the Omnipotent. The rage of the Jews was 
wasted on a phantom. Their Jehovah became trans- 
formed by the Gnostics into a rebellious and igno- 
rant spirit ; and the son of God came to overthrow 
his power. The Armenians still retain this belief, 
holding that the manhood only of Christ existed 
withaut creation of a divine substance. 

The religious feelings of the East connected moral 
with spiritual ideas, and regarded spirit as essentially 
pure and divine, while matter was inherently corrupt 
and evil. Christianity first came in conflict with 
Orientalism at Ephesus, which, working insidiously 
into its structure, threatened to entirely subvert its 
design. 

Of these opponents, Cerinthus, placed on the con- 
fines of the Jewish and Gentile worlds, the first who 
admitted the tenets of Christianity, strove to recon- 
cile Gnosticism with the Ebionite faith, or Chris- 
tianity with Oriental mysticism. Christ he believed 



126 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

to be of a higher order than those secondary and 
subordinate beings who presided over the older 
world. 

The Father could not be contaminated by contact 
with matter necessitated to a mortal birth and death. 
The visible Christ was flesh and blood. He consid- 
ered him the son of Joseph and Mary ; human, but 
the last of his race, to restore the worship of the 
true and Supreme Deity at his baptism in the Jordan. 

The Christ, the first of the eons, the son of God 
himself, descended, in the form of a dove, to inhabit 
his mind, and direct his actions for the allotted space 
of his ministry. The Christ left the solitary Jesus 
alone to suffer the agony of the cross. The taunts 
called forth by this ingratitude were variously met. 
It was said, Jesus, being human, deserved to suffer ; 
that he would be fully repaid, and that he was ren- 
dered insensible to pain. 

The body and the spirit furnish a type of that 
more imposing union by a divine power with a body. 
There is nothing contradictory in the doctrine of in- 
carnation, but the consequences of its admission 
were dangerous to opposers of Arianism. It did not 
accord with their sublime theology to acknowledge 
that God himself was manifested in the flesh, matur- 
ing in foetal growth through manhood, scourged, 
crucified, felt the mortal agony, and expired. Apol- 
lonius met the issue fairly, and admitted in full its 
broadest consequences. He uttered the memorable 
words, still heard in theological warfare, "One in- 
carnate nature of Christ." 



speculations of Gnosticism. 127 

But his heresies, and those of the Ebionites and 
Docetes, were proscribed ; and the double nature, as 
taught by Cerinthus, was modified and received, 
fashioned as it is*at the present day, — the substan- 
tial, indissoluble union of a perfect God with a per- 
fect man. 

In the second century, these doctrines, under the 
name of Gnosticism, had matured, and divided the 
believers in Christianity, and its dogmas have never 
lost the tinge it gave them. Its tenets were sublime 
and imposing. The primal Deity remained aloof in 
inapproachable majesty. He was the unspeakable, 
the infinite. The fullness of the godhead, the Ple- 
roma, expanded in ever-enlarging circles until it em- 
braced the universe. From this Pleroma sprang all 
spiritual beings, and back to it they would all return. 
By their entanglement with vile and degrading mat- 
ter, evil existed, and all outward existence had become 
degraded. To restore them again unsullied to the 
bosom of the Deity, freed from the stain of matter, 
was the mission of Christ. Pushing these fancies to 
their consequences, they were compelled to reject 
the Jewish Jehovah, who could not be the father, 
but must be some inferior God. He was left undis- 
turbed to the Jew. To them, Christ revealed a De- 
ity hitherto unknown in a world the creation of aa 
inferior being. The whole school of Gnostics were 
perplexed at the human nature of Christ. They 
seized on the distinctiveness of his divine and hu- 
man natures. Even the virginity of his mother pol- 
luted him, and the union was offensive to theni. 



1 28 Career of the God-Idea in History, 

They escaped by suffering : the divine came down 
on the man Jesus at his baptism, and ascended after 
his death. The Christ whom men saw was but a 
phantom. 

Influenced by the spirit of Gnosticism, Celsus, 
supposed to have been an Epicurean philosopher, 
living towards the close of the second century, urged 
many cogent reasons against the Christian's ideas of 
divinity. The pictures they drew of God's vengeance 
were, to him, very offensive ; for the philosophers de- 
lighted to represent the Supreme as incapable of mor- 
tal passions. Nor could he be reconciled with the 
idea that the Logos could have been born of woman. 
He also objected to the pure anthropomorphic idea 
of creation entertained by the Church : " It is not 
for man, more than for lions and eagles, that every- 
thing was created. It was in order that the world, 
as the work of God, might present a perfect whole. 
God provides only for the whole ; and that his prov- 
idence never deserts. This world never becomes 
worse. God does not return to it after a long inter- 
val. He is as little angry with man as with apes 
and flies. The universe has been provided, once for 
all, with all the powers necessary for its preservation, 
and for developing itself after the same laws. God 
has not, like a human architect, so executed his 
work that at some future period it would need to be 
repaired.'' 

He placed the Supreme Being above the world 
and all created things, and regarded the worship of 
different gods as only the varying expression of the 



Origin of the Holy Ghost 129 

same worship. " The unity of the Supreme Be- 
ing remains, even if it be admitted that each na- 
tion has its gods, whom it must worship in a 
certain manner, according to its pecuUar charac- 
ter; and the worship of all these different dei- 
ties is reflected back to the Supreme God, who 
has appointed them, as it were, his delegates 
and representatives. Those who argue that men 
ought not to serve many masters, impute human 
weakness to God. He is not jealous of the adora- 
tion paid to subordinate deities. His nature is su- 
perior to degradation and insult. Reason itself 
might justify the belief in the inferior deities, the 
objects of established worship. For, since the Su- 
preme Being can only produce that which is immor- 
tal and imperishable, the existence of mortal beings 
cannot be explained unless we distinguish from him 
those inferior deities, and suppose them to be the 
creators of mortal beings and of perishable things." 

Some difficulty was encountered in the evolution 
of the Holy Ghost ; and, with the difficulty, its seem- 
ing importance grew in tenfold ratio. Did it origi- 
nate with the Father or Son 1 This was a vexed 
question with the early converts. It could not come 
from the Father; for in that case the Logos and 
Spirit would be brothers, and it was affirmed that the 
Logos was the only-begotten. But to have it pro- 
ceed from the Son would make God its grandfather. 
Nevertheless a sect was established on the last hy- 
pothesis. 

Ambrose thus decides the query satisfactorily to 



1 30 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

himself: "The holy individual trinity never does 
anything separately. The Father, the Son, and the 
Spirit created the body of Christ. The Father, be- 
cause it is said, " God sent his Son made of a wo- 
man ; the Son, because it is said, " Wisdom has 
builded her house ; '* the Spirit, because " Mary was 
with child by a Spirit." That the spirit was a per- 
sonality, was considered fully proved by its taking 
on the form of a dove at the baptism of Christ. 

Endless theological discussions occurred and end- 
ed in still more completely befogging the disputants, 
who wandered over the trackless desert in an ever- 
returning circle. 

The 'Cradle of churchianity was rocked by these 
childish disputations, which were simply a war of 
words, enlivened by the phantom of ideas. 

After centuries of angry combat, not always con- 
fined to words, and the repeated resolutions of coun- 
cils, the Platonic trinity became the Orthodox 
creed : as might have been predicted from the first ; 
for, granting the premises, it was the only logical 
solution of the incomprehensible problem. 



VII. 

THE GOD-IDEA OF THE LATER PHILOSOPHERS. 

There is one God. — Mohammkd. 
God is Love. — Jesus. 

The great Positive Mind of the universe, — Father God and Mother Na- 
ture. — A. J. Davis. 

FROM the great struggle between Athanasius 
and Arius, the ascendency of the former, and 
triumph of the mysterious doctrine of the trinity, to 
the present, little advance has been made in the 
development of the god-idea. As established by the 
early Catholic councils, it has descended unchanged. 
The history of its career would be a barren and 
tedious repetition of unintelligible formulas and un- 
meaning distinctions. Whenever a belief becomes 
a creed, and that creed sacred and infallible, there 
is an end to progress. During this bleak interval 
outside of the Church, a few thinkers have endeav- 
ored to gain the truth, but they have generally 
made the attempt entirely independent of estab- 
lished beliefs. 

Previous to the revival of learning in Europe, or 
for the space of the whole millennium, the question 
was discussed theologically, and the chatter of a 
flock of jays would be as interesting and quite as 
intelligible. 



132 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

With the revival of learning, really great and 
earnest thinkers, though 'treating it in a metaphysical 
manner, explored its profound depths, and exhausted 
an amount of labor and research that in any other 
field would have been richly rewarded. 

Giardino Bruno taught a pure Pantheism, and no- 
bly met the flames prepared by an enraged priest- 
hood, who sought to blot out his truths with his life's 
blood. 

God to him was the infinite intelligence, the cause 
of causes, the principle of all life and mind ; the great 
activity, whose action we name the universe. But 
God did not create the universe : he informed it with 
life, with being. He is the universe ; but only as 
the cause is the effect, — sustaining it, causing \t, but 
not limited by it. He is self-existing, yet so essen- 
tially active as incessantly to manifest Himself as a 
cause. Between the Supreme Being, and the infe- 
rior beings dependent upon him, there is this dis- 
tinction : He is absolutely simple, without parts ; 
he is one whole, identical and universal : whereas 
the others are mere individual parts, distinct from 
the great whole. Above and beyond the visible 
universe there is an infinite invisible, — an immova- 
ble, unalterable identity, which rules over all diver- 
sity. This being of beings, this unity of unities, is 
God : " Deus est monadum monaSy nempe entitim en- 
titas!' 

Bruno says, that, although it is impossible to 
conceive nature separated from God, we can con- 
ceive God separated from nature. The Infinite Be- 



speculations of Bruno. 133 

ing is the essential centre and substance of the uni- 
verse, but he is above the essence and substance of 
all things : he is siiperessentialis^ super sub stantialis. 
Thus we cannot conceive a thought independent of 
a mind, but we can conceive a mind apart from any- 
one thought. The universe is a thought of God's 
mind : nay, more, it is the infinite activity of his 
mind. To suppose the world finite is to limit his 
power. " Wherefore should we imagine that the di- 
vine activity (la divina efficacia) is idle ? Wherefore 
should we say that the divine goodness, which can 
communicate itself ad mfinitrLm^ and infinitely dif- 
fuse itself, is willing to restrict itself? Why should 
his infinite capacity be frustrated, defrauded of its 
possibility to create infinite worlds } And why 
should we deface the excellence of the divine image, 
which should rather reflect itself in an infinite mir- 
ror, as his nature is infinite and immense ? " * 

Descartes* demonstration of the existence of God 
has become famous. It is thus presented in the form 
of a syllogism. 

All that we clearly and distinctly conceive as con- 
tained in anything is true of that thing.f 

Now we conceive clearly and distinctly, that the 
existence of God is contained in the idea we have 
of him. Ergo^ God exists. 

This may satisfy a metaphysician, but it has no 
positive element of certainty. Spinoza arose from 
the study of Descartes, and, looking at nature, asked 

* Del' Infinito, opp. Ital. ii. 24. \ Lewes. 



1 34 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

what meant the ever-flowing tide of change. It was 
all phenomenal, depending on external change or 
the state of the perceiving mind. Under the phe- 
nomeitay must be a noumenon. The reality of all ex- 
istence is substance ; not gross materiality, but the 
substance which stands under all things. What this 
substance is of itself, we can never know, because 
to know it would be to bring it under forms and 
conditions of the mind, and thus make it a phenom- 
ena. 

Spinoza, while admitting an intelligence acting 
in and forming a part of matter, supposed that it 
was neither thought nor extent exclusively of each 
other, although both were its necessary attributes. 
Descartes, in common with most philosophers, as- 
sumed a duality, — God, and a world created by God. 
Spinoza affirmed that extension and thought were 
only attributes of matter, and by subtile sympathies 
reduced the duality to a unity, an infinite one. 

God is the absolute substance. From him arises 
all existence. He is the fountain from which flows 
the endless successions of living forms. The uni- 
verse is a simple manifestation. The finite reposes 
on the bosom of the Infinite. There is but one re- 
ality, and that is God. 

Lewes thus laconically presents the Spinozian 
speculations on God. 

There is but one infinite substance, and that is 
God. Whatever is, is in God ; and, without him, 
nothing can be conceived. He is the universal be- 
ing, of which all things are the manifestations. He 



speculations of Spinoza. 135 

is the sole substance : everything else is a mode ; yet, 
without substance, mode cannot exist. God, viewed 
under the attributes of infinite substance, is the nat- 
ura naturans : viewed as a manifestation, as the 
modes under which his attributes appear, he is the 
natiLra naturata. He is the cause of all things ; and 
that immanently, but not transiently. He has two 
infinite attributes, — extension and thought. Exten- 
sion is visible thought, and thought is invisible ex- 
tension : they are the objective and subjective of 
which God is the identity. Every thijig is a mode 
of God's attribute of extension ; every thought, wish, 
or feeling, a mode of his attribute of thought. That 
extension and thought are not substances, as Des- 
cartes maintained, is obvious from this : that they 
are not conceived per se, but per aliud. Something 
is extended : what is } Not the extension itself, but 
something prior to it ; viz., substance. Substance is 
uncreated, but creates by the internal necessity of 
its nature. There may be many existing things, 
but only one existence ; many forms, but only one 
substance. God is the idea immanens^ the one and 
all. 

Spinoza has been charged with atheism by those 
who misunderstood his obscure sentences, and he 
was compelled to sufie^ persecutions for ideas which 
would have met a better fate had they been clearly 
expressed. His profession of faith reads like that of 
Fenelon, rather than of the cold atheistical philoso- 
pher : — 

" If I also concluded that the idea of God, com- 



136 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

prised in that of the infinity of the universe, released 
one from obedience, love, and worship, I should make 
a still more pernicious use of my reason ; for it is 
evident to me that the laws which I have received, 
not by the relation or intervention of other men, but 
immediately from him, are those which the light of 
nature points out to me as the true guides of a ra- 
tional conduct. If I failed in obedience in this par- 
ticular, I should sin, not only against the principle 
of my being, and the society of any kind, but also 
against myself, in depriving myself of the most solid 
advantage of my existence." 

" With regard to the love of God, so, I conceive, 
is this idea from tending to weaken it, that it is more 
calculated to increase it, — since, through it, I know 
that God is intimate with my being ; that he gives 
me existence and my every property : but he gives 
them liberally, without reproach, without interest, 
without subjecting me to anything but my own na- 
ture. It banishes fear, weariness, distrust, and all 
the effects of a vulgar and interested love. It in- 
forms me, that this is a good which I cannot lose, 
and which I possess the more fully as I know and 
love it.'' 

It may be placed with the singular freaks of hu- 
man judgment, that, with this refined idea of every- 
thing being an extension of God, Spinoza rejected 
the doctrine of final causes. Perhaps on this ac- 
count he received the designation of an atheist. 

Schelling thought the whole value of science was 
in its speculations, meaning by that term the con- 



Schelling and Fickle. 137 

templation of God as he exists. Reason, inasmuch 
as it affirms God, cannot affirm anything else, and 
annihilates itself at the same time as an individual 
existence as anything out of God. Thought is not 
any thought, and being is not any being ; for every- 
thing belongs to God or the all. If nothing exists 
out of God, then must the knowledge of God be only 
the infinite knowledge which God has of himself in 
the eternal self-affirmation. God is not the highest, 
but the only one. He is not to be viewed as the 
summit or the end ; but as the centre, as the all 
in all. Consequently there is no such thing as be- 
ing lifted up to the knowledge of God ; but the 
knowledge is i^nmediate recognition. * 

Fichte rejected design. He rejected the world as 
the objective existence of the Ego ; and in that man- 
ner we are, ourselves, creators of it. Design being 
applicable to finite things is wholly inapplicable to 
the infinite. 

" God," says Fichte, " must be believed in, not i^t- 
ferred. Faith is the ground of all conviction, scien- 
tific or moral. Why do you believe in the existence 
of the world } It is nothing more than the incarna- 
tion of that which you carry within you, yet you 
believe in it. In the same way God exists in your 
consciousness, and you believe in him. He is the 
moral order of the world : as such, we can know him, 
and only be as such. For, if we attempt to attribute 
to him intelligence or personality, we at once neces- 
sarily fall into anthropomorphism. God is infinite ; 

* Jahrbucher der Medicin. Quoted by Lewes. 



1 38 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

therefore beyond the reach of our science, which 
can only embrace the finite, but not beyond our 
faith." 

We reahze God by doing our duty. True rehgion 
is the realization of the universal reason. If we had 
perfect liberty, we should be one. If we had the 
same conditions, we should be one in thought, there 
would be but one will, and perfect harmony. * This 
grand result should be the aim of mankind. 

Hegel, in his ^* Philosophy of Religion," applies his 
method to the solution of the problem of the nature 
of God. He accepts the trinity, with his interpre- 
tation. God the Father is the eternal idea, or un- 
conditioned abstraction ; God the Son, engendered by 
the father, is a conditioned reality ; ** God the Holy 
Ghost is the identity of the two, the negation of the 
negation and perfect totality of existence." God the 
Father existed before the world, and created it. He 
created it because it is the essence of his being to 
create. He creates not by an act, but an eternal 
moment : he is forever creating. It is through crea- 
tion that the abstraction passes into activity. It is 
the realization of God. 

Voltaire affirmed that the knowledge of a God was 
not impressed upon us by the hand of nature, else 
we should all have the same idea. This knowledge 
does not come like our perceptions of light, or the 
earth, which we receive as soon as our understand- 
ings are awakened ; nor is it a philosophical idea, 

* Sittenlehre. Gerichtliche Verautwortung ss chriften ge- 
gen die Auklage des Atheismus. 



Voltaire on a Final Cause. 139 

for men believe in a God before they become phi- 
losophers. 

The idea is derived from that natural logic which 
is met with among the rudest of mankind. 

Our idea of divinity is wholly inadequate ; and, as 
we pass from conjecture to conjecture, we find few 
certainties. " There is something : therefore there 
is something eternal, for nothing is produced from 
nothing. Here is a certain truth on which the mind 
reposes. Every work which shows us means and an 
end announces a workman : then this universe, com- 
posed of springs, of means, each of which has its 
end, discern^ a most mighty, a most intelligent work- 
man. Here is a probability approaching the great- 
est certainty." 

While Voltaire was thus easily satisfied with the 
reasoning fully developed by Paley, that of a final 
cause, he could not believe this being capable of cre- 
ating matter, and quoted the Grecian philosophers 
to sustain his position. But here arose an unfortu- 
nate dilemma. If God and matter existed independ- 
ently, there are two necessary beings ; and, if there 
are two, there may be thirty. With this strange 
inference, he acknowledges, with Cicero, his own 
ignorance, and the vanity of the discussion. 

He could not understand how Spinoza could re- 
ject final causes. " If this infinite universal being 
thinks, must he not have design } If he has design, 
must he not have a will } Spinoza says. We are 
modes of that absolute, necessary, infinite being. I 
say to Spinoza, We will, and have designs, we who 



1 40 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

are but modes ; therefore this infinite, necessary, 
absolute being cannot be deprived of them ; there- 
fore he has will, design, power/' * 

Doubter as he was, he could not, as he declares, 
deny that the eye was made to see, the stomach to 
digest, etc. '' For my part, I see in nature, as in 
the arts, only final causes ; and I believe that an ap- 
ple-tree is made to bear apples, as I believe that a 
watch is made to tell the hour." f 

Voltaire was unquestionably a great thinker, but 
he could not escape the ideas of his age. Had he 
known the wonderful developments of science made 
within the last fifty years, he might perhaps have 
had his implicit faith in the similarity of appearance 
shaken. There is not the remotest analogy between 
the apple-tree and a watch, between the design man- 
ifested in one and that of the other. Growth by 
natural laws and artificial construction have nothing 
in common, and their similarity is only superficial. 

A careful investigation of all Voltaire has said 
about God would lead us to conclude, that, after all, 
he refined God to "truth itself;" but the anecdote 
with which he illustrates his position leaves us un- 
decided, whether to believe him to have been a 
theist, or an atheist whose theism was only as- 
sumed. 

" I had just built a closet at the end of my garden 
when I heard a mole arguing thus with an ant : — 
" Here is a fine fabric," said the mole : " it must 
have been a very powerful mole that performed this 

*Phil. Dic.ii. 381. \\h. 



Failure of Voltaire. 141 

work." — " You jest/' returned the ant : " the archi- 
tect of this edifice is an ant of mighty genius." 

With this seemingly close appreciation of the sit- 
uation, Voltaire consented to become like the ant 
or mole, and, when gazing over creation, see only the 
work of a final cause, and insult with satire, which 
came from the meanness of a narrow soul, those who 
did not receive it. 

Swedenborg, notwithstanding his illumination, ac- 
cepted the trinity in its grossest form. " The trinity, 
then, is in and from Jesus Christ, the new name of 
our God. The Father is his divine love ; the Son is 
his divine wisdom, — that is to say, the divinely 
human form ifi which he is self-adapted to his 
creatures, or a personal God ; the Holy Spirit is the 
influence which he communicates to churches. This 
trinity is imaged in the soul, body, and operation of 
every man. The Father is inaccessible to us out of 
Christ, even as our own souls are not to be reached 
by others except through our bodies." The Father 
entered the world by real means, by the gates of 
generation, and became incarnate through the Vir- 
gin Mary. Every human soul experiences the same 
changes, and the end is the same, the passions are 
subdued by the trials of this life, and the pure divin- 
ity arises into the next life. 

The idea of God is thus expressed in the articles 
of faith of the New Church : " That Jehovah God is 
the creator and preserver of heaven and earth, is 
love itself, and wisdom itself, a God itself, and truth 
itself: that he is one both in essence and in person; 



142 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

in whom, nevertheless, is the divine trinity of Father 
Son, and Holy Spirit, which are the essential divin- 
ity, the divine humanity, and the divine proceeding, 
answering to the soul, the body, and the operative 
energy, in man ; and that the Lord and Saviour Je- 
sus Christ is that God." 

'' Man, it is clear, must think of God as a man ; 
must think from his own experience towards divine 
virtues ; from his own deeds towards God's deeds, 
which are creation. The must in this case is a ne- 
cessity of our being ; which is the same thing as to 
say, that it is God's ordinance, and the true method. 
It is therefore a verity substantial as our souls ; nay, 
consubstantial with their Maker. No idealism then 
here intervenes ; but we touch the solidity of eternal 
truth, and in our minds and bodies we have an at- 
testation and vision of the Creator. But, if God be 
the infinite man, the universe which proceeds from 
him must represent man in an image, and all the 
creatures must likewise so represent. Mineral, vege- 
table, and animal forms, — nay, atmospheres, planets, 
and suns, — are then nothing less than so many means 
and tendencies to man, on different stages of the 
transit ; and finite man resumes them all, proclaims 
visibly their end, and may connect them with their 
fountain. It is throughout a system of correspond- 
ences, all depending upon the activity of a personal 
God, as the substance of the latter depends upon the 
intervention of God in history, as Jesus Christ. Re- 
move from the centre of the system the position that 
God is a man, and he becomes necessarily unintelli- 



speculations of Swedenborg. 143 

gible to mankind. He has made them think of him 
otherwise than he is. They communicate with him by 
no rehgion ; but the beginning of their knowledge is 
darkness, its object a mere notion, and their love falls 
into a void, — there is, in short, no correspondence be- 
tween the' Creator and any creature. Maintain, how- 
ever, that master position ; and humanity is the way 
to the divine humanity, the- high road of the living 
truth. 

" The path by which God passes through heaven 
into nature is laid down in distinct degrees, and ' the 
doctrine of degrees' furnishes a principal interest 
with Swedenborg in these elucidations. Degrees 
are the separate steps of forms or substances, the 
measured walk of the creative forces. Thus the will 
in one degree is the understanding in the next, and 
the body in the third ; the animal in the highest is 
the vegetable in the second, and the mineral in the 
lowest ; and all these are one, like soul and body, 
and are united, and each uses the lower, by the han- 
dles of its harmony with inferior utilities, — just as a 
man is united with, and makes use of, the various 
instruments which extend the powers of his mind 
and arms through nature. The world, therefore, is 
full of interval and freedom ; and in the movements 
of each creature, whereby it lays hold of whatever 
supports it, the whole becomes actively one, and 
marches forward in the realms of use, where it meets 
the omnipotent again.'' 

Thus traversing the gulf of almost two millenni- 
ums, bridged as it were by the great thinkers, we 



144 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

find, that, after bestowing their best thoughts on the 
subject, they have arrived at no satisfactory results ; 
not even satisfied themselves. 

The doctrines which the Church is supposed to 
receive with unquestioning faith were once in the 
most unsettled state ; and not by reason, but by the 
arbitrary decrees of councils and synods, often meet- 
ing with drawn swords, were their inspired character 
determined. 



VI 1 1. 

THE GOD-IDEA OF THE BIBLE. 

Whither shall I go from thy spirit ? or whither shall I flee from thy pres- 
ence ? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there. If I make my bed 
in hell, behold thou art there. 

Through God we sliall do valiantly : for he it is that shall tread down our 
enemies, — Psalms. 

For in him we live, move, and have our being. — Paul. 

THE necessity for a divine revelation is supposed 
to exist on account of the fallen and corrupt 
condition of mankind. * If this revelation super- 
sedes reason and nature, and flows from an infalli- 
ble source, it must present a perfect view of the di- 
vine Being. If we examine it critically, in the same 
unprejudiced manner that we do any other book, we 
shall find that such is not the fact. It bears the un- 
mistakable evidence of human origin. If God gave 
a revelation to Moses, and another to Paul, he would 
represent himself the same in both. The Bible 
should be a unit throughout, although its inspired 
writers were scattered over a thousand years. We 
find, sad fact, the very reverse. It is a book com- 
posed of many fragments ; and each of these con- 
tains, not the absolute view of God, but the writer s 

* Diet, of Bible, by Rev. John Brown. Edinburgh. 293. 
10 



146 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

ideas of God. Man changes ; the ages come and go, 
bringing new ideas : but God is eternal. The rude 
IsraeHtes in the wilderness, and the disciples, thought 
far diiferently from each other. They wrote differ- 
ently. Hence the Bible is contradictory ; and, if we 
ask it to give us the character and attributes of God, 
it gives him the most diverse and conflicting attri- 
butes. If called on to decide the unity or trinity of 
the Godhead, it yields many texts for both, though 
more strongly favoring the latter. He is repre- 
sented as satisfied with his works, and as dissatis- 
fied ; * as dwelling in temples, and as not : f as dwell- 
ing in light, and in darkness : % as seen and heard, 
and as impossible to be seen or heard : § as being 
weary, and resting ; and as never requiring rest : |[ as 
being omnipresent and all-knowing, and as limited in 
presence and knowledge : ^ as being all-powerful, and 
the reverse:** as changeable, and unchangeable : ff 
as just and impartial, and unjust and partial : %% as 
the author of evil, and as not the author : §§ as war- 
like, and as peaceful : || || as cruel, unmerciful, destruc- 

* Compare Gen. i. 31, with Gen. vi. 6. 

t Comp. 2 Chr. vii. 12, with Acts vii. 48. 

X Comp. I Tim. vi. 16, with i Kings viii. 12. 

§ Comp. Ex. xxxiii. 11, with John i. 18. 

II Comp. Ex. xxxi. 17, with Is. xl. 28. 

1[ Comp. Prov. xv. 3, Job xxxiv. 22, with Gen. xviii. 20, 21, 
Gen. iii. 8. 

** Comp. Matt. xix. 26, with Judges i. 19. 
ff Comp. Gen. vi. 6, with Sam. i. 17. 

tJ Comp. Deut. xxxii. 4, with Sam. ix. 25, and Matt. xiii. 12. 
§§ Comp. Is. xlv. 7, with i Cor. xiv. 33. 
Ill Comp. Ex. XV. 3, with Rom. xv. 33. 



God of the Bible, 147 

tive, and ferocious ; and as kind, merciful, and good : * 
as being vindictively angry and unforgiving, and 
as merciful, f 

With true heathen relish, he is described as de- 
lighting in burnt-offerings, sacrifices, and the observ- 
ance of holy days ; and again, when a sudden gleam 
of spirituality pierces the darkness, as disapproving 
all of these : % as accepting human sacrifice, and for- 
bidding it : § he is also described as tempting nian, 
as lying and deceiving ; and again as neither lying 
nor deceiving. || The unity and plurality of gods are 
both indorsed by the Bible. % The Creator, repre- 
sented as the- author of all things, is an eternal spir- 
it, infinite, omnipresent, ** almighty, perfectly good, 
merciful sincere, faithful ; who upholds and governs 
all things, good or bad. It shows us that this Crea- 
tor subsists, of his own simple and undivided essence, 
in three distinct persons, — the Father, Son, and 
Holy Ghost ; "the same in substance, and equal in all 
divine power and glory." 

The Father is the true God, that from eternity be- 
gat his only son, ff consulted with and fore-ordained 

* Comp. Jer. xiii. 14, with Sam. v. 11. 

t Comp. Jer. xvii. 4, with Ps. ciii. 8. 

% Comp. Ex. xxix. 36, Lev. xxiii. 27, i. 9, with Jer. vi. 20, 
Ps. V. 13, 14, Is. i. 13. 

§ Comp. 2 Sam. xxi. 8, 9, 14, Judg. xi. 30-39, with Deut. 
xii. 30, 31. 

II Comp. Gen. xxii. i, i Kings xxii. 23, with Heb. vi. 18, James 

i. 13. 

1[ Deut. vi. 4, Gen. i. 26, i John v. 7. 
** Job xi. 7. 

tt Ps. ii. 7. 



148 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

him before the foundation of the world. He sent 
him into the world,* supported him through his 
earthly struggle, speaking in and working through 
him, t gave him up to death, and raised him from 
the dead, and crowned and gave him all power in 
heaven. 

The Son is equal to the Father as a person, :j: but 
one in essence. He is called God, the only god, 
the King of kings, and Lord of lords ; and all the di- 
vine attributes of omnipotence, omnipresence, and 
unchangeableness, are ascribed to him. § 

Though, as son, he is equal to the Father, through 
his human nature, as mediator, he is inferior. In 
that state, he undertakes to pay our debts, and ful- 
fills the obligation. He is the husband, shepherd, 
friend, and physician, the all-in-all, to his people. 

Christ is God and man, united so as to enable him 
to be a true mediator between the infinite and finite. 

The Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and 
Son. II He is omnisicent, omnipresent, and al- 
mighty. ^ He is recognized, not as an energy, but 
as a person, reproving, executing, and being grieved. 

Such is the trinity as recorded in the Bible, and 
received by all Orthodox Christians. Its mystery 
they do not attempt to solve ; but receive it with a 
blind, uncriticising faith. 

* Luke i. 35. 
t John V. 19-22. 
X Zech. xiii. 7. 

§ Matt, xviii. 20, xxviii. ^0, Phil. iii. 21, Heb. xiii. 8. 
II John XV. 26. 
H I Cor. ii. 10, II, Eph. ii. 17, 18, Luke i. 35. 



God of the Bible, 149 

But the Unitarians claim the Bible furnisnes ab- 
solute proof that God is one. Christ is the son of 
God, and the Holy Ghost is the power and divine in- 
fluence of God. They hold that the early fathers for 
the first three centuries were on their side, and that 
the Bible has received its trinitarian cast from con- 
tact with pagan philosophy. 

Justin Martyr, the most distinguished and the 
earliest writer next to the apostles, says, " We wor- 
ship God the maker of the universe, offering up to 
him prayers and thanks. But assigning to Jesus, 
who came to teach us these things, and for this end 
was born, the ' second place ' after God, we not with- 
out reason honor him." 

From the beginning to the present, the discussion 
of the unity and trinity of the Godhead has more or 
less disturbed the quiet of the church ; and there is 
now a gradual movement, through Unitarianism, to- 
wards a more reasonable, not to say understandable, 
view of Divinity. 

The God-idea of the Bible would not be complete 
were the Devil omitted. That personage fills a 
most important position, by solving the problem of 
the existence of evil. The scheme would be im- 
perfect without him. The belief in his existence is 
passing away, but his name cannot be blotted from 
the pages of Scripture. It remains as a remnant of 
the influence of Persia and Assyria on the Hebrew 
mind. The Bible recognizes the duality in nature, 
the good and the evil deities ; and Lucifer, fallen as 
he is, is believed by the Orthodox and Catholic 



150 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

world to be the stronger, if the number of souls he 
leads be a sign of power. 

The Biblical idea of God is anthropomorphic. By- 
placing Christ as a mediator, it is intensely so. The 
Jewish idea recorded in the Old Testament is dis- 
gustingly tainted with this belief. 

God, through human nature, sacrificed for man, is 
the same in Crishna and in Christ. The human 
mind, weary with contemplation of infinity, seeks the 
divine maHy and deifies ideal human nature. 

We again have come to the same result. The 
study of the Bible brings us to the same point we 
reached in our investigation of the doctrines flowing 
from the Shaster and Zendavesta. 

Human nature returns to itself The God at last 
is only a man. Afar off, he looked huge and un- 
real ; near, and he dwarfs to human size. 



IX. 



THE- GOD-IDEA OF THE BORDER-RELIGIONS, — CHI- 
NESE, DRUIDS, SCANDINAVIANS, AND AZTECS. 

God resides in the heart of all creatures. — Mahabharata. 

Talk, talk much as you please ; but who, what made and governs those 
unnumbered worlds that pasture in the illimitable fields of heaven? — 
Napoleon. 

THERE are great religions which have sprung 
up, and swayed the destinies of milHons, seem^ 
ingly isolated, and having no historical connection 
or relation to our own. In all of them, however, we 
can trace the same human elements, the same strug- 
gle for knowledge, and in their successes and fail- 
ures learn the unity of human intellect and circum- 
stances in all ages and races. 

The numbers who embrace a religion prove noth- 
ing. A million men are as liable to receive a false 
idea as one : the only necessity is, that that idea be 
on their plane of understanding. If numbers prove 
anything, the Christian religion is false : for it has 
never been received except by a moiety of mankind ; 
while Buddhism and Moslemism have been received 
by hundreds of millions, undisputed from generation 
to generation. 

The almost innumerable population of China hold 



152 Career of the God-Idea in History, 

to crude and erroneous notions, and vigilantly 
defend them against every innovation, refusing 
even to examine any other system ; but their rever- 
ence for them, because taught twenty-five hundred 
years ago by Confucius, proves as little as the obe- 
dience of the urchin proves the truthfulness of the 
command he obeys. As a rule applying to the past, 
the more followers a system has, the greater proba- 
bility that it is false ; and another equally applicable 
is, that, the older an idea is, the greater the probabiU 
ity that it is false. 

These startling propositions are proved by an ex- 
amination of some of the outlying religions of the 
pagan world. The most notable of these forms of 
belief are the Druidic, Scandinavian, Chinese, and 
Aztec. 

Though it is very easy to decide the religious 
forms and ceremonies of a people, to seize on their 
peculiar ideas, for the moment taking their place, 
and receiving thoughts as fashioned by their train, is 
a most difficult achievement. The civilized man 
judges all opinions and policies, found among the di- 
verse race of the globe, by his own standard ; a 
method most unjust and objectionable. 

Every race of people have ethical systems, .grow- 
ing out of their own wants and desires ; good for them, 
though possibly bad for others. The Chinese un- 
doubtedly would form as unfavorable an opinion of 
our religious system as we do of theirs. Of their 
system the most that can be said is that it is nega- 
tive. The active impassioned religious sentiment 



God'Idea of the Chinese. 153 

of the West is unknown to the celestials. The cere- 
monial is nine-tenths of their religion. They fur- 
nish almost the only example of a people who have 
never offered human sacrifice ; nor have they ever 
personified or deified any of the vices or passions, 
like the ancient Greeks and Romans. Their mythol- 
ogy is far from those tales of loves and hates of the 
gods by which the latter brought their deities down to 
the sphere of humanity. 

Because of this deficiency, no hierarchy has ever 
been able to rise to the power and influence of a 
caste, as in India, although Budhists and Rationalists 
have been patronized and admitted into imperial 
confidence.* There is a state religion which from 
remote antiquity has undergone little change ; which 
consists, not of dogmas and doctrines to be learned 
and believed, but in rites and ceremonies, f The ob- 
jects of state worship are chiefly things, although 
persons are sometimes included. There are three 
grades of sacrifice, — the great, medium, and inferior. 
The great sacrifices are applied to four objects only, 
— the heavens or sky, the earth, the great temple of 
ancestors, and the gods of the land and grain, the 
special patrons of each dynasty. The medium are 
offered to the sun, moon, the names of emperors, 
Confucius, the gods of heaven and earth, and the 
passing year. The inferior are offered to the an- 
cient patron of the healing art, innumerable spirits 
of eminent departed men, the elements, rivers, moun- 
tains, etc. 

* The Middle Kingdom. Williams. \ Dr. Morrison. 



154 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

The emperor performs the ceremonial worship of 
the four superior objects, as Pontifex Maximus, as- 
sisted by members of the imperial clan and the 
board of rites. The hierophants are required to pre- 
pare themselves for the occasion by -fasting ; ablution ; 
change of garments ; separation from their wives, all 
pleasurable scenes, and the dead : " for sickness and 
death defile ; while banqueting dissipates the mind, 
and unfits it for holding communication with the 
gods/' The sacrifices consist of calves, bullocks, 
sheep, pigs, and the offerings of silks. The flesh- 
offering is usually cooked before being placed on the 
altar. Severe penalties are annexed to any infor- 
mality or neglect, and still heavier to the common 
people should they state their wants to the four su- 
perior objects of imperial adoration. The vulgar 
may worship as they please ; but, if they join in the 
worship of the son of heaven, death is their punish- 
ment. 

This worship is supposed to be the concrete ex- 
pression of the early worship of the universe. By 
the adoration of the heavens, the earth, and terres- 
trial gods, they sought to incliide and propitiate all 
superior powers. The original idea of a supreme in- 
telligence, or Shangti, seems to have been lost. 

The state religion of China is only a mere pageant : 
all its members, however, are learned men, disciples 
of Confucius, or the yu kian. These have no tem- 
ples, priests, or creed, in the common acceptation of 
the term ; and hence worship at the Buddhist shrines, 
with the Rationalists, or even with the Romanists, 



speculations of Chu HL 155 

without losing connection with their countfymen. 
The influence of Confucius was momentous on the 
intellectual development of his countrymen ; but he 
was not a religious teacher in any sense of the word. 
Although he believed himself commissioned to re- 
store a better state, he never taught the duty of man 
to any higher power than the head of a family or 
state. He said he did not comprehend the myste- 
rious ways of the gods, and that the duty of man lay 
in fulfilling his obligations to his relations and soci- 
ety rather than worshiping unknown spirits. " Not 
knowing even life, how can we know death "i " 
When dying, his disciples asked to whom they should 
sacrifice : he nobly answered, " I have already wor- 
shiped,'' giving utterance to the grand truth that a 
well-ordered life is the best offering man can render 
the Infinite. 

The great metaphysician of China is Chu Hiy only 
surpassed by Confucius in influence. This philoso- 
pher, perhaps partially acquainted with the specula- 
tions of India, resolved the obscure references to 
Shangtiy in the Shu King, into pure materialism ; 
making nature the first principle, which, by operat- 
ing on itself, evolves the dual powers Yin and Yang, 
The method of this celestial metaphysician can be 
best seen by a quotation, in which his system is ex- 
pressed. It is an interesting fact, that, adopting a 
similar method as the Western sages, he wanders 
for a time in the same fog of uncertainties, and draws 
his conclusions in the same positiye manner. Many 



156 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

of his propositions would not discredit the finest in- 
tellects of the West. 

" Under the whole heaven there is no primary 
matter {It) without the immaterial principle {ki), and 
no immaterial principle apart from the primary mat- 
ter. Subsequent to the existence of the immaterial 
principle is produced primary matter, which is dedu- 
cible from the axiom that the one male and the one 
female principle of nature may be denominated tau 
or logos (the active principle from which all things 
emanate) : thus nature is spontaneously possessed 
of benevolence and righteousness (which are inclu- 
ded in the idea of tau^ 

" First of all existed tien li (the celestial principle 
or soul of the universe), and then came primary mat- 
ter : primary matter accumulated constituted chih 
(body, substance, or the accidents and qualities of 
matter), and nature was arranged. 

*' Should any ask whether the immaterial principle 
or primary matter existed first, I should say that the 
immaterial principle, on assuming a figure, ascended ; 
and primary matter, on assuming form, descended. 
When we come to speak of assuming form, and as- 
cending or descending, how can we divest ourselves 
of the idea of priority and subsequence } When the 
immaterial principle does not assume a form, pri- 
mary matter then becomes coarse, and forms a sedi- 
ment. 

" Originally, however, no priority or subsequence 
can be predicated of the immaterial principle ; and 
yet, if you insist on carrying out the reasoning to the 



speculations of Chu Hi. 157 

question of their origin, then you must say that the 
immaterial principle has the priority. But it is not a 
separate and distinct thing : it is just contained in 
the centre of the primary matter, so that, were there 
no primary matter, then this immaterial principle 
would have no place of attachment. Primary mat- 
ter consists, in fact, of the four elements of metal, 
wood, water, and fire ; while the immaterial principle 
is no other than the four cardinal virtues of benevo- 
lence, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom. . . . 

'^ Should any one ask for an explanation of the 
assertion that the immaterial has first existence, and 
after that comes primary matter, I say, it is not ne- 
cessary to speak thus : but, when we know that they 
are combined, is it that the immaterial principle 
holds the precedence, and the primary matter the 
subsequence 1 or is that the immaterial principle is 
subsequent to the primary matter 1 We cannot thus 
carry our reasoning : but, should we endeavor to form 
some idea of it, then we may suppose that the pri- 
mary matter relies on the immaterial principle to 
come into action ; and, wherever the primary matter 
is coagulated, there the immaterial principle is pres- 
ent. For the primary matter can concrete and co- 
agulate, act and do ; but the immaterial principle has 
neither will nor wish, plan nor operation ; but only 
where the primary matter is collected and coagulated 
then the immaterial principle is in the midst of it. 
Just as in nature, men and things, grass and trees, 
birds and beasts, in their propagation invariably re- 
quire seed, and certainly cannot without seed, from 



158 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

nothingness, produce anything. All this, then, is the 
primary matter ; but the immaterial principle is mere- 
ly a pure, empty, wide-stretched void, without form 
or footstep, and incapable of action or creation : but 
the primary matter can ferment and coagulate, col- 
lect and produce things. . . . 

" Should any one ask, with regard to those ex- 
pressions, * The Supreme Ruler confers the due me- 
dium on the people, and when Heaven is about to 
send down a great trust upon men, out of regard to 
the people it sets up princes over them ;' and 
* Heaven, in producing things treats them according 
to their attainments, — on those who do good, it 
sends down a hundred blessings, and, on those who 
do evil, a hundred calamities ; ' and, * When Heaven 
is about to send down some uncommon calamity 
upon a generation, it first, produces some uncom- 
mon genius to determine it,' — do these and such 
like expressions imply that above the azure sky 
there is a Lord and Ruler who acts thus } or is 
it still true that Heaven has no mind, and men only 
carry out their reasonings in this style } I reply, 
these three things are but one idea : it is that the 
immaterial principle of order is thus. The primary 
matter in its evolutions hitherto, after one season of 
fullness, has experienced one of decay ; and, after a 
period of decline, it again flourishes, — just as if 
things were going on in a circle. There never was 
a decay without a revival. 

*' The great extreme {tai kill) is merely the imma- 
terial principle. It is not an independent separate 



Th^ Great Extreme. 159 

existence ; it is found in the male and female prin- 
ciples of nature, in the five elements, in all things : 
it is merely an immaterial principle, and, because of 
its extending to the extreme limit, is therefore called 
the great extreme. If it were not for it, heaven and 
earth would not have been set afloat. . . . From 
the time when the great extreme came into opera- 
tion, all things were produced by transformation. 
This one doctrine includes the whole : it was not be- 
cause this was first in existence, and then that ; but 
altogether there is only one great origin, which from 
the substance extends to the use, and from the sub- 
tle reaches to that which is manifest. Should one 
ask, ' Because all things partake of it, is the great 
extreme split up and divided 1 ' I should reply, that 
originally there is only one great extreme {anima 
mundi) of which all things partake, so that each one 
is provided with a great extreme : just as the moon 
in the heavens is only one, and yet is dispersed over 
the hills and lakes, being seen from every place in 
succession ; still you cannot say that the moon is 
divided. 

" The great extreme has neither residence nor 
form nor place which you can assign to it. If you 
speak of it before its development, then previous to 
that emanation it was perfect stillness : motion and 
rest, with the male and female principles of nature, 
are only the ernbodiment and descent of this princi- 
ple. • Motion is the motion of the great extreme, and 
rest is its rest ; but these same motion and rest are 
not to be considered the great extreme itself . . . 



1 60 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

Should any one ask, ' What is the great extreme ? * I 
should say, it is simply the principle of extreme 
goodness and extreme perfection. Every man has 
a great extreme, everything has one ; that which 
Lao-tse called the great extreme is the exemplified 
virtue of everything that is extremely good and per- 
fect in heaven and earth, men and things. 

" The great extreme is simply the extreme point, 
beyond which one cannot go ; that which is most 
elevated, most mysterious, most subtle, and most di- 
vine, beyond which there is no passing. Lienki was 
afraid lest people should- think that the great ex- 
treme possessed form, and therefore called it the 
boundless extreme, a principle centred in nothing, 
and having an infinite extent. ... It is the imma- 
terial principle of the two powers, the four forms, 
and the eight changes of nature : we cannot say that 
it does not exist, and yet no form or corporeity can 
be ascribed to it. From this point are produced the 
one male and the one female principles of nature 
which are called the dual powers : the four forms 
and eight changes also proceed from this, all ac- 
cording to a certain natural order, irrespective of 
human strength in its arrangement. But from the 
time of Confucius no one has been able to get hold 
of this idea." * 

He might well add, no one ever will be able to 
seize this idea. The Chinese metaphysicians have 
followed after him, rolling this stone of Sisyphus in 
a constant, unvarying circle, with all the eagerness, 

*^ Chinese Repository, vol. xiii., pages 552, 609, et seq. 



/ The Gods and Spirits. i6i 

subtlety, untiring zeal, and want of success, that has 
marked their fellows in Europe. 

With regard to the gods and spirits, Chu Hi '' af- 
firmed that sufficient knowledge was not possessed 
to say positively that they existed, and he saw no dif- 
ficulty in omitting the subject altogether. His sys- 
tem is also entirely silent respecting the immortal- 
ity of the soul, as well as future rewards and punish- 
ments. Virtue is rewarded, and vice punished, in the 
individual, or in his posterity, on earth ; but of a 
separate state of existence he or his disciples do not 
speak.'* 

These sublimated speculations are not for the 
common people. They worship whatever promises 
relief or assistance ; and the scholar of the classics 
joins them in their devotions, whatever they may be. 
There is a titular divinity of each city, who has a 
temple, and receives special worship. There are fif- 
teen hundred and sixty temples dedicated to Con- 
fucius alone, on whose altars sixty thousand animals 
are annually offered. 

The literati laugh at the ceremonies, yet join in 
and lead them. The people have not advanced be- 
yond the stage of culture which accepts miracles. 
They believe in " rain-making '' with the vehemence 
of the African. When the gods do not answer their 
prayers and sacrifices, they even proceed to castigate 
their carved images. 

In one respect the teachings of the classics are 
remarkable. It is a prime tenet that human na- 
ture is originally virtuous, and is corrupted entirely 



1 62 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

by bad precept and example. This, early instilled 
by official authority into the mind of the child, neces- 
sarily exerts a great and decided influence on his 
character. The vengeance of the gods or future 
punishment is not spoken of, — only the well-being 
of the. individual and the good of society in this 
world. 

The Rationalists adopt the teachings of Lao-tse, 
who was born B. C. 604, or fifty-four years before 
Confucius. Imagination has surrounded him with 
the miracles and myths which invariably cluster 
around a great name. A remarkable parallel exists 
between his doctrines, those of Zoroaster, the Es- 
senes, and the Gnostics. They are not unlike those 
of Zeno. 

'' Both recommend retirement and contemplation 
as the most effectual means of purifying the spirit- 
ual part of our nature, annihilating the material pas- 
sions, and finally returning to the bosom of the su- 
preme reason. He says, * All material visible forms 
are only emanations of Tau or Reason : this formed 
all beings. Before their emanation, the universe 
was only an indistinct confused mass, a chaos of all 
the elements in a state of a germ or subtle essence.' 
In another section, he says, 'All the visible parts of 
the universe, all beings composing it, the heavens 
and all the stellar systems, all have been formed of 
the first elementary matter : before the birth of 
heaven and earth, there existed only an immense si- 
lence in illimitable space, an immeasurable void in 
endless silence. Reason alone circulated in this in- 



Ideas of the Druids. 163 

finite void and silence/ In one of his sections, 
Lao-tse says, * Reason has produced one, one pro- 
duced two, two produced three, and three made all 
things. All beings repose on the feminine principle ; 
and they embrace and envelop the male principle, — 
a fecundating breath keeps up their harmony/ He 
teaches the emanation and return of all good beings 
into the bosom of reason, and their eternal existence 
therein ; but, if not good, the miseries of successive 
births and their accompanying sorrows await them." * 
The most popular sect are the Buddhists. Their 
doctrines are in harmony with those of Confucius. 
Buddhism does not hold out the incentive of immor- 
tality, nor the favor of the gods in that state. It is 
not opposed to the classics. Hence its priests grad- 
ually became the high priests of popular supersti- 
tion, and have since maintained their position. 
China is full of temples, in most of which Buddhist 
priests are found, without reference to the God to 
whom the temple is erected. 

The Druids. 

Scattered over Europe are circles of rude blocks 
of stone of immense size, of which Stonehenge is 
an example. They are rough as when broken from 
the quarry. The people who placed them there 
were scarcely above savages, for they made no pre- 
tense to hew the blocks into shape. The beholder 
is impressed with the simple idea of unuttered 
* Middle Kingdom. Williams. 



1 64 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

vastness and indefinable striving which the builders 
strove to express. Who were they ? What was the 
object of these circles ? History is silent, and tra- 
dition faintly answers. By placing fragmentary 
notices together, culled from Roman authors, an 
outline can be gathered of the religion of the peo- 
ple who were spread over the vast territory stretch- 
ing from the northern confines of the Roman empire 
to the North Sea, and from the Atlantic to the in- 
definite boundary of Asia. In the West, this people 
were called Celts, and their religion was the famed 
and mysterious worship of the Druids. 

Little is known of its tenets, nothing of its origin ; 
and perhaps nothing more can ever be added to our 
scanty knowledge. With its stern worshipers the 
knowledge of the system has perished. The migra- 
tions of these people can be traced, by affinities of 
language and customs, to the high table-lands of 
Asia. * The worship of fire, of the stars, and the 
sun, the abhorrence of images, are so many indices 
of their origin. 

The dogmas of the Druids were known only to the 
priests, never being committed to writing. Tacitus 
says that the ancient Germans believed in the exist- 
ence of one Supreme Being, to whom all things were 
obedient. Every portion of the universe was ani- 
mated by this divinity ; and hence they worshiped 
sun, moon, stars, earth, and water. In the dark re- 
cesses of their primeval forests they kept the sacred 
fire perpetually burning ; and, at religious festivals, 
immense fires revealed their savage forms. 

* See " Origin and Antiquity of Man," by the author. 



Ideas of the Druids. 165 

" They suppose Hertha, or Mother Earth, to inter- 
fere in the affairs of men, and visit different nations. 
In an island in the ocean stands a sacred and invio- 
lable grove, in which is a consecrated chariot cov- 
ered with a veil, which the priest alone is permitted 
to touch. He perceives when the goddess enters 
this secret recess ; and with profound veneration he 
attends the vehicle, which is drawn by yoked cows. 
At this season all is joy. Every place which the 
goddess deigns to visit is a scene of festivity. No 
wars are undertaken : every hostile weapon is laid 
aside. Then only are peace and repose known, then 
only .are they loved. After a time the same priest 
re-conducts the goddess to her temple, satisfied with 
mortal intercourse. The chariot and its covering, 
and, if we may believe it, the goddess herself, then 
undergo ablution in a secret lake. This office is 
performed by slaves, whom the lake instantly swal- 
lows up. Hence proceeds a mysterious horror and 
holy ignorance of what that can be, which is beheld 
only by those who are about to perish." * 

The Teutons worshiped a deity called Tuisco, 
from whom they derived their name. From his 
marriage with Hertha, the earth, mankind were pro- 
duced. An image of a woman with a child in her 
arms was consecrated in their forests, and was held 
particularly sacred. They had festivals in honor of 
the sun, and greeted the new moon with torchlight 
processions. They held the Rhine in great venera- 
tion, and cast offerings into its waves. 

No priesthood were ever held in greater venera- 

* Tacitus. 



1 66 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

tion or fear than the Druids. They were prophets, 
lawgivers, and executors of the law. They excom- 
municated those who opposed them ; and thenceforth 
the victim became an outlaw, and his most inti- 
mate friends did not dare walk with him for fear of 
sharing the curse resting on him. Whole cities and 
nations were thus excommunicated, a fate dreaded 
as the worst of public calamities. 

Woman held a high place in the Druidical system. 
Tacitus says that some Germans '' suppose a divine 
and prophetic quality resident in their women, and 
are careful neither to disregard their admonitions, 
nor neglect their answers." They were called to the 
national councils, and often fought with equal brav- 
ery in battle. The part they performed in the na- 
tional worship was most important. The highest 
order of priestesses were vowed to perpetual celib- 
acy, and dwelt in sacred places. It was the univer- 
sal faith that all events happened according to unal- 
terable destiny, known only to the gods, and re- 
vealed to prophets. As spirits had such intimate 
relations with men, trial by ordeal was considered 
most proper, as the good spirit would protect the in- 
nocent. Convulsions of nature, as earthquakes, vol- 
canoes, and tempests, were caused by the death of 
some great man. 

They believed, that, when the blood of man had 
been shed, nothing but the blood of man could sat- 
isfy the offended deities. If a man was in danger, or 
prostrate with sickness, it was supposed that it was 
the result of sin, and the sin could be atoned for only 



Ideas of the Druids. 167 

by the blood of another man. Sometimes, to avert 
national disaster, whole hecatombs of victims were 
sacrificed to the offended gods. A huge image of a 
man was made of basket-work ; which was then filled 
with men, women, and children, generally prisoners, 
but sometimes their own kindred, and the whole con- 
signed to the flames. The cruelty of such sacrifices 
was lessened by the belief that the victims became 
pure, and raised to an equality with the superior na- 
tures of the gods. 

The Druids did not tolerate images. Their rites 
were performed in the darkest groves and caverns, 
where it was supposed powerful spirits loved to re- 
sort. Savage man showed his child-like nature by 
peopling the dark with goblins. They erected cir- 
cles of rough stones, like that of Stonehenge ; and, 
within the inclosures thus formed, altars smoked 
with oblations of fruits, grain, flowers, and flesh of 
slaughtered animals ; and, more terrible, from them 
the wail of human anguish ascended to appease the 
wrath of offended gods. 

Such was the dark and appalling religion which 
held Northern Europe in abject bondage to the will 
of a crafty priesthood for numberless centuries until 
subdued by the Roman power, and the superior 
light of Christianity penetrated the minds of the 
barbarians. Their supreme God was like the He- 
brew Jehovah, — fierce, sullen, wrathful ; and his 
children were compelled to appease him by abject 
homage and dreadful sacrifices. 



1 68 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

Scandinavia. 

The religious ideas of Scandinavia, before the ad- 
vent of Thor, are not well understood ; as that people 
were reluctant to unveil their sacred mysteries be- 
fore strangers. * They revered a supreme God, the 
author and ruler of the universe, possessing infinite 
power, knowledge, and justice. It was unlawful to 
represent him by images, or any corporeal shape, 
or to worship him in any inclosure or temple. His 
only shrine was the dark forest or consecrated grove. 

Between this infinite being and man existed a de- 
scending series of divinities, emanating from the 
former, whose office was to rule over the elements, 
control the operations of nature, or act as messen- 
gers in executing the sentences of the infinite. 
These were propitiated by sacrifice, and their favor 
was the reward in the future life. 

This primitive mythology gradually changed its 
character by the introduction of new and foreign 
gods, the heroic Odin taking the place of principal 
deity. It prevailed seven or eight hundred years, 
when it gave way before Christianity. It is pre- 
served in the " Elder Edda," a compilation of the 
spiritual thoughts, beliefs, and emotions of the Nor- 
thern race. They strove to solve the mysteries of 
creation with equal ardor and results as the philos- 
ophers of Greece. They erected a stupendous cos- 
mogony and theogony, fierce and awful as the deso- 
late mountains and crags of their native country. 

* Tacitus. Germ. 



Ideas of Scandinavia. 169 

In the beginning, chaos reigned over the universe. 
There was neither heaven nor earth, only the bot- 
tomless abyss of Ginnungagap, and the two regions 
of Nifelheim and Muspelheim. The first contained 
the well Hvergelmer, whence flowed twelve poison- 
ous streams which generated ice, snow, wind, and 
rain : the latter was the abode of fire, ruled by Sur- 
tur. 

From the union of heat and moisture issued 
drops from which sprang the giant Ymer, with his 
brethren, the Rimthursar, the evil ones. They were 
nourished by the cow Andhumbla ; and she was sup- 
ported by licking the rocks, covered with salt and 
hoar-frost. 

" In those days a creature was born, endowed 
with beauty, agility, and power. His son was Borr, 
who married a giantess, and was father to Odin, 
Vile, and Ve. The Earth was his daughter and his 
wife ; the mother of his first-born, Asa-Thor the in- 
vinciljle." 

" The descendants of Borr slew Ymer, whose 
blood caused a deluge that drowned all the Rimthur- 
sar except Bergelmer, from whom the rest of the 
giants were sprung. Of Ymer's body the gods made 
the world ; his flesh composed the mold ; his bones, 
the rocks ; his hair, the trees and herbs ; his sweat, 
the ocean, in the midst of which was fixed the earth ; 
and his skull, the heavens, which they divided into 
four quarters, placing the dwarfs East, West, South, 
and North, at each corner, to sustain it. Of his 
brain they formed the heavy clouds, and of his eye- 



1 70 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

brows they erected Midgard, the middle mansion, or 
abode of men. 

" The new erection, as yet, was without propor- 
tion, and enveloped in darkness. The sun and moon 
were ignorant of their powers, and the other lumi- 
naries knew not the stations they were to occupy. 
At length Odin, the god of light, with his brothers, 
who sat in council, collected the sparks from Mus- 
pelheim that flew about in Ginnungapap, and plant- 
ed them as stars in the firmament. They also fixed 
the names and appointed the order of the seasons. 
Natt (the Night) wedded one of the Asen, a race 
fair and divine ; and their son Dag (Day) was beau- 
tiful like his father. With two steeds they travel 
successively round the world in twenty-four hours : 
the horse of Night is Rimfaxi (Frost-mane), the foam 
of whose bit causes the dew ; the car of Day is drawn 
by Skinfaxi (Shining-mane), whose radiant mane il- 
lumines the sky. A cool air, placed under their 
skins, gives freshness to the morning. The suji and 
moon are guided in their course by the two children 
of Mundifor. 

" On the extreme shore of the ocean was Utgard, 
also Jotunheim, where dwelt Nor and the giants, 
against whom a wall or strong fortress was built to 
separate them from Asgard, the habitation of the 
gods. There, under the root of the tree of the 
world, lived the dwarfs and elves ; and there is the 
home of Sleep, who rises every night to seal the eye- 
lids of mankind. At the north sat the giant Hras- 
velg, devouring the dead : his shape was that of an 



Ideas of Scandinavia. 171 

eagle ; and, when he moved his wings, it caused the 
winds and the desolating tempests to blow. There 
were nine heavens and nine earths, in the lowest of 
which resided Hell, the goddess of the nether world. 

" As yet the human species had no existence ; 
when Odin, intent upon beautifying the universe, 
created a man and woman. Ask and Embla, from two 
pieces of wood (ash and elm), thrown by the waves 
upon the beach. These were the first pair ; and the 
three Asen endowed them with life, comeliness, and 
intellect. 

'' The gods themselves inhabited Asgard, which 
may be considered as the Scandinavian Olympus. 
It contained a number of cities and halls, the 
largest and most splendid of w^hich was named Glad- 
heim, or the mansion of joy, wherein were twelve 
seats for the primary deities, besides the throne oc- 
cupied by All-fader, the universal father. Another 
edifice erected for the goddesses was Vingolf, the 
abode of love and friendship. In Alf heim dwelt the 
luminous elves or fairies, a distinct race from the 
black genii that live under the earth. The celestial 
capital was overspread with the famous ash Ygdra- 
sil, the tallest and most beautiful of all trees, whose 
branches covered the whole earth, and towered 
above the heavens. To preserve it evergreen, it 
was watered by the Nornor, the fates or destinies 
that distribute to man the various events of his life, 
good or bad. It had three roots. One reached to 
Nifelheim, where Nidhogg, a monstrous serpent, lay 
and gnawed it in the well Hvergelmer, the source 



172 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

of the infernal rivers. Another extended to the abode 
of the Rimthursar ; and under it was the well Mimer, 
the fountain of wisdom, where Odin left his eye in 
pledge for a cup of its inspiring waters. The third 
stretched to the Asen, and the human world. Be- 
neath was the holy spring of Urd, where two swans 
were nursed, the progenitors of all birds of that spe- 
cies, and where the gods sat in judgment, passing 
to it every day on horseback, over the sacred bridge 
Bafrost (the rainbow), on which the giants dared 
not tread. In a hall under it lived three virgins of 
the Nornor, who dispense the ages of men." 

Odin is the chief deity of Asgard. He is the 
father of all, the creator and governor of the uni- 
verse. Frizza, the Earth, is his daughter and wife ; 
the graceful Balder, his second son. 

There were a host of deities of minor repute, — of 
the ocean, war, archery, peace ; goddesses of love, 
the toilet, prudence, of medicine, etc. There were 
also Valkyries, whose office was to pour out mead 
for the braves in Valhalla, passing it in cups made 
from the skulls of enemies. Then the departed he- 
roes engaged in feasting, or hewing each other to 
pieces in combat, to become renewed at the hour 
of repast. 

The Scandinavian cosmogony saw in the remote 
past a Garden of Eden, and the story of its loss is 
the poetry of imagination. It also has a conclusion 
to the present order of nature, — a grand finale. Of 
that time the Vala sings, — 



Ideas of the Aztecs. 173 

" The sun all black shall be, 
The earth sink in the sea, 
And every starry ray 
From heaven fade away ; 
While vapors hot shall fill 
The air round Ygdrasil, 
And, flaming as they rise, 
Play towering to the skies." 

Out of ruin shall arise a new and inconceivably 
more beautiful earth ; and then man shall live accord- 
ing to his deeds, — eternally happy or miserable. 
Of the fate of the sinful, the Edda draws the follow- 
ing terrible picture : 

" There is an abode remote from the sun, the gates 
of which face the north. Poison rains through a 
thousand openings : it is constructed with the car- 
casses of scorpions and serpents, their heads turned 
inward. From this dismal abyss smoke ascends in 
dense columns. There the wicked float in streams 
of venom, black as pitch, and cold as ice ; or have 
their bodies perpetually gnawed and tortured by a 
wolf. The respective destinies of the good and the 
bad are to endure forever, as they are ordained by 
the decrees of the powerful Being who governs all, 
and who comes forth from his lofty throne to render 
divine justice." 

The Aztecs. 

A strange civilization grew up in the southwest- 
ern section of North America : it was infantile, 
anomalous, and unique, and contained the elements 



1 74 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

of self-defeat. When discovered by the Spaniards, 
it was already on the decline ; and, by the ferocious 
bigotry of those invaders, it was utterly extinguished. 
In vain we look for its parallel in the surrounding 
Indian tribes. Instead, we find analogies on the 
opposite regions of the globe. The worshipers of 
fire on the plains of Persia, the dreamy Hindoos of 
the Ganges, appear to have contributed to the wor- 
ship of the semi-civilized Aztec. 

Mythology has been defined as the poetry of reli- 
gion. It may be better defined as the essence of 
external conditions. It is dependent on geography. 
Savage man, pushing his way out of savagedom, must 
have his rude conceptions modified by the surround- 
ing nature from which they spring. The Goth of 
the dark forests of Germany, quaffing mead from the 
skulls of vanquished enemies, must originate an en- 
tirely different mythology than the delicate Indian of 
the tropics, whose hfe is listlessly spent under the 
shade of the banana. * The Atzecs had as thor- 
ough and burdensome a ceremonial as ever darkened 
the historic pages of any people. It was the con- 
crete expression of their own fierce and unrelenting 
character. 

They recognized the existence of a supreme Crea- 
tor and Lord of the universe. They addressed him 
in their prayers as " the God by whom we live ; " 
"Omnipresent, that knoweth all thoughts, and 
giveth all gifts ; " "without whom man is nothing ; " 
" invisible, incorporeal, one God, of perfection and 

* Prescott. Con. of Mexico. 



Ideas of the Aztecs. 1 75 

purity ; " " under whose wings we find repose and a 
sure defense." * 

Such expressions seem to convey a not inade- 
quate view of the Creator : but the Aztec had no idea 
of unity ; of a being, all-pervading, whose simple 
volition was action, and who needed no inferior min- 
isters to execute his purposes ; and they filled the im- 
passable gulf between the infinite and man with a 
host of inferior deities, who presided over the ele- 
ments and the occupations of men. Such is the un- 
varying escape of the savage from the oppressive 
contemplation of the infinite. There were thirteen 
principal deities, and more than two hundred inferior, 
each having special days of festival, f 

The chief deity was the terrible, sanguinary mon- 
ster, Huitzilopotchli, the god of war. His temples 
were the most august, and hecatombs of captives 
shed their blood on his altars in every city of the 
empire. Terrible as he is represented, he was born 
of a virgin, entering the world armed like Minerva. % 

Quetzalcoalt presents a more pleasing character. 
He is undoubtedly one of those personages who de- 
vote themselves to the improvement of their race, 
and are deified by the rude gratitude of their coun- 
trymen. He instructed his people in the use of 

* Prescott. Con. of Mexico. 

f Tahagun. His. de Nueva Espana. 

% Like Christ, the chief deity of the people beyond the 
Ganges, of China, Thibet, and the Mars of the Aztecs, were 
born of virgins. See Milman, His. Christianity ; Clavigero, 
Stor. del Messico ; Barrow. 



176 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

metals, in agriculture, and civil polity. During his 
stay, the earth was fruitful beyond expression, with- 
out the pains of culture. The cotton grew colored 
with exquisite dyes ; an ear of corn was as large as 
a man could carry ; the air was perfumed, and full of 
melody. This was the golden age, which is found 
in the myths of all races. 

Compelled to abandon the country by the wrath 
of the principal gods, he stopped at Cholula, where 
a magnificent temple was erected to him, the inter- 
esting ruins of which are still to be seen. Then he 
stepped into his wizard skiff formed of serpent skins, 
and departed over the Mexican gulf, to the fabled 
land of Tlapallan, first telling his people that he and 
his descendants would return. This superstition, 
which saw in the advent of the Spaniards its fulfill- 
ment, was a potent cause of national extinction. 

From these deities there was a regular gradation 
down to the household gods. 

The priestly order was numerous. It is esti- 
mated that five thousand were connected with the 
principal temples of the empire. They possessed all 
the scanty knowledge of their time, and employed it 
in strengthening the superstition which gave them 
power. " The priests were each devoted to the ser- 
vice of some particular deity, and were provided with 
apartments in the temples. In these monastic resi- 
dences they lived in all the stern severity of conven- 
tual discipline. Thrice during the day, and once at 
night, they were called to prayers. They were fre- 
quent in their ablutions and vigils, and mortified the 



Aztec Temples. 177 

flesh by fasting and cruel penance, drawing blood 
from their bodies by flagellation, or by piercing them 
with thorns of the aloe. * 

The Aztec temples were called teocallis or " Houses 
of God." They were very numerous ; and some 
were of grand proportions, on which all the eflbrts of 
crude art expended itself. They were pyramids of 
earth, incased with brick or stone, some of them 
more than a hundred feet square at their base, 
and more than that in height. On the broad top of 
these pyramids were lofty towers containing images 
of the presiding deities, in front of which stood the 
terrible sacrificial stone, and two lofty altars, on 
which blazed the inextinguishable sacred fire. 

The religious ceremonies were most august and 
impressive. The long lines of priests slowly wind- 
ing up the sides of the pyramids, and the procession 
of votaries crowned with garlands bearing their offer- 
ings of fruits, gums, and choicest grains, presented 
a beautiful and thrilling spectacle. Often, however, 
leading that procession, were human victims ; and the 
kettle-drum, from the summit of the temple, called 
the breathless people to witness their immolation. 

Such sacrifices were required by Tezcatlipoca, 
who ranked next to the Supreme Being ; who was 
called the " Soul of the world," and was said to have 
been its creator. " He was depicted as a handsome 
man, endowed with perpetual youth. A year before 
the intended sacrifice, a captive, distinguished for his 
personal beauty, and without a blemish on his body, 

* Prescott. 



178 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

was selected to represent this deity. Certain tutors 
took charge of him, and instructed him how to per- 
form his new part with becoming dignity and grace. 
He was arrayed in a splendid dress, regaled with 
incense, and with a profusion of sweet flowers. 
When he went abroad, he was attended by a train 
of royal pages ; and, as he halted in the street to play 
some favorite melody, the crowd prostrated them- 
selves before him, and did him homage as the repre- 
sentative of their good deity. In this way he led a 
life of luxury till within a month of his sacrifice. 
Four beautiful girls, bearing the names of the prin- 
cipal goddesses, were then selected to share the hon- 
ors of his bed ; and with them he continued to live 
in idle dalliance, feasted at the banquets of the prin- 
cipal nobles, who paid him divine honors of a divin- 
ity. At length the fatal day arrived. The term of 
his short-lived glories was at an end. He was 
stripped of his gaudy apparel, and bade adieu to the 
fair partners of his revelries. One of the royal 
barges transported him across the lake to a temple 
which rose on its margin about a league from the 
city. Hither the inhabitants of the capital flocked, 
to witness the consummation of the ceremony. As 
the sad procession wound up the sides of the pyra- 
mid, the unhappy victim threw away his gay chap- 
lets of flowers, and broke in pieces the musical in- 
struments with which he had solaced the hours of 
captivity. On the summit he was received by six 
priests, whose long and matted locks flowed disor- 
derly over their sable robes, covered with hiero- 



Aztec Sacrifices. 179 

glyphic scrolls of mystic import. They led him to the 
sacrificial stone, a huge block of jasper, with its up- 
per surface somewhat convex. On this the prisoner 
was stretched. Five priests secured his head and 
his limbs ; while the sixth, clad in a scarlet mantle, 
emblematic of his bloody office, dexterously opened 
the breast of the wretched victim with a sharp razor 
of itztliy — a volcanic substance, hard as flint, — and, 
inserting his hand in the wound, tore out the palpi- 
tating heart. The minister of death, first holding 
this up towards the sun, an object of worship 
throughout Anahuac, cast it at the feet of the deity 
to whom the temple was devoted, while the multi- ' 
tudes below prostrated themselves in humble adora- 
tion. The tragic story of the prisoner was expound- 
ed by the priests as the type of human destiny, 
which, brilliant in its commencement, too often 
closes in sorrow and disaster. * 

After the sacrifice, the body was delivered to the 
warrior who captured him in battle, who served it 
up at a feast as the concluding act in this awful r^- 
ligious Ax2ir^2i. 

Women as well as men were sometimes sacrificed. 
In seasons of drought, Thaloe, the god of rain, de- 
manded the offering of children ; and infants were 
offered, the priests reading, in the tears evoked by 
the sight of their innocence, an augury that their 
petition would be answered. 

The most polished nations of antiquity sacrificed 
human victims, but none to the terrible extent of 

* Prescott. 



1 80 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

the Aztecs. Some authors estimate the number of 
victims annually sacrificed throughout the empire at 
twenty thousand, and others state it as high as fifty 
thousand. At the dedication of the great temple of 
Huitzilopotchli, the victims, who had been preserved 
for years, were drawn from all parts, and ranged in 
files forming a procession nearly two miles in length. 
Seventy thousand captives are said to have been im- 
molated on the shrine of the dreadful god. 

The main object of war was to secure victims for 
their sacrifices ; for, in case they were not thus ob- 
tained, they must be supplied from the people. By 
such diabolical rites, the gloom of superstition spread 
over all the people, from the throne of the king to the 
hearth of the peasant ; and, having impregnated them 
with the blindest fanaticism, the priest placed his 
iron heel on their necks, and held them in abject 
bondage. 



X. 



CONCLUSION — ULTIMATE OF THE GOD-IDEA. 

They who deny the popular conception of God are called Atheists. The 
best and greatest men have been branded with this blasting name, — 
Thales, Aristotle, Xenophanes, both the Zenos, Cicero, Seneca, Abe- 
lard, Gallileo, Kepler, Descartes, Leibnitz, Wolf, Locke, Cudworth, 
Clark, Jacob Boehme, Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. Priestley, 
Von Holback, Helvetius, Diderot, and D'Alembert, have been so stig- 
matized. The early Christians and all the most distinguished religious 
philosophers have borne the name. 

Beneath all the ceaseless changes and unrest of nature, there is that 
which never changes. — Arcana. 

It is impossible even for God to escape Fate. — Herodotus. 

IT is a singular fact, that the first great problem 
which engaged the human mind was one that 
by its profundity was impossible for a finite mind to 
grasp. This problem was the nature of God. In 
this it indicates its kinship to the infinite and ever- 
lasting. It asks, with the first breath of its being, 
what, where, and who is God, feeling that an answer 
is imperatively necessary, and yet from the very con- 
stitution of things it cannot receive a reply. 

The child follows the savage, and, while yet un- 
able to comprehend the construction of its toys, 
lisps the half-articulated query, "Who and where is 
God?" 



1 82 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

Around this question aggregate the various reli- 
gious systems of the world. Its attempted answers 
form the basis of all sacred literature and ethical 
systems. The dreamy Hindoo, retired from the 
world in the deepest jungle or remotest cavern, 
transcribing the vagaries of ecstasy from generation 
to generation, fashioned the Shaster. Mohammed 
gathered the traditions of the monotheistic Arab in 
the Koran ; another Semitic people our own Holy 
Book ; and, in the same wonderful region of Asia, 
originated the Zend, holy to the fire-worshipers. If 
we look carefully into these books, we shall find that 
the answer has been an echo of the writer s ideas as 
these were molded by the aspect of surrounding 
nature. The Semitic race, from whom the two 
great systems of Judaism and Islamism are derived, 
were monotheistic by force of the country they in- 
habited. The terrible solitudes of the deserts of the 
East, the sameness, the oneness so to speak, re- 
acted on the wild men who roamed over them. 

After surveying the ideas entertained of God by 
all races of men, from the remotest time to the pres- 
ent, we find, that, amid conflicting claims and pre- 
tended revelations, there is no certainty, nothing ab- 
solute. We have exhausted the sacred traditions 
of mankind, and have met only vague conjecture. 
Where, then, shall we seek for the solution ? We 
must turn to nature, and await her reply. 

Man is placed in the midst of an endless plain, 
boundless and inexpressible. All his thoughts, ideas, 
and desires, are in harmony with the conditions which 



Reason the Umpire. 183 

environ him. Whether he gaze on the summit of the 
blue, cloud-capped mountain, the hurrying cataract 
which bounds over its rocky side, the smooth, tran- 
quil river, or the ocean lashed to fury by the commo- 
tions of the atmosphere ; whether he with the mi- 
croscope survey the world of invisible beings which 
dwell in a single drop of stagnant water, in the blood 
or the juices of the muscles, or with heaven-directed 
telescope survey the realms of immensity, worlds 
and worlds tumultuous piled, yet harmonious, and 
obeying one general law by which they are preserved 
from general ruin ; whether he gaze down the dim 
vista of the past, and behold the endless mutations 
matter has undergone, the forms which have arose 
from those lower and less developed ; or forward in- 
to the misty future, and feel a longing and undefined 
desire to know and feel the changes future ages will 
produce, — his mind is ever alive to the impressions 
of surrounding nature. 

It has been said that we know nothing of causa- 
tion, that the effect is all we have knowledge of, and 
that it is rank infidelity to try to reveal the hidden 
ways of the Almighty. No more so than to see the 
effect. All evidence we have of any object is the 
impression which that object produces on our senses, 
and all the evidence which we possess of the ex- 
istence of causation, is the effect which ideas pro- 
duce upon our reason and understanding. Hence 
we have as much right to infer from one as the other, 
and to trace to their final cause the effects and 
causes of nature. To us we have no higher law than 



1 84 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

reason : we possess no other guide ; and, if that fail, 
we have no support. It is the Divine power, which 
is the only safeguard in investigation, and, unpervert- 
ed, will be a true and faithful guide. 

At the outset, we learn that we never can ascer- 
tain who, what, and where is God. All that is left 
us is to learn what he is not. It is the ordained 
task of the learning of the present to overthrow the 
religious dogmas of the past by showing their incon- 
sistencies and imperfections, and at the same time 
crush our egotism by teaching us how very limited 
are our powers when we attempt to grasp the uni- 
versal and infinite principles which underlie and sup- 
port creation. 

This age is the incarnation of utilitarianism. It 
can understand nor appreciate, only as it perceives 
the use and end. Out of its mechanical view of 
nature has arisen a school of philosophy of which no 
other age could have dreamed. The doctrines of 
Paley have extended wherever an Anglo-Saxon 
dwells. He gave scientific cast to the doctrines of 
final cause, the ignoble theory of design in nature. 

The doctrine of special design leads necessarily to 
the individualization, the personality of a deity, su- 
perior and outside of nature ; existing prior to and 
creating the external world. For, if there is design, 
there must be a designer, and that designer must 
have power to put his designs in execution. If so, 
then he is but an extension of a reasoning being ; 
an enlargement of man. He is a man with unlimi- 
ted power. 



A Personal God. 185 

There are two arguments, each conclusive, against 
the existence of such a being : 

First : An individuaUty is necessarily circum- 
scribed, for its limitation makes it such. If circum- 
scribed, it is not infinite, but finite ; and a finite be- 
ing cannot control infinite power or possess infinite 
intelligence. 

Second : Something cannot originate from noth- 
ing. If such a being exists, he must be an entity, 
which presupposes the incarnation of matter, how- 
ever refined, and his creation and existence become 
a far more perplexing problem than the creation of 
tlie universe itself. For it is an axiom that it is 
easier to create the lesser than the greater ; and how 
much more rational to suppose the self-existence of 
matter, than of a being capable of evoking matter 
from nonentity by a thought ! 

Such are the arguments against the existence of a 
personal God. They are not applicable, however, to 
the supposition of an all-pervading essence, in which 
some philosophers believe, not outside of matter, but 
rather its spirit, its life, and vital force. I shall reach 
this position after following out another course of 
thought. 

According to the doctrine of final cause, we are to 
stop our investigations when we reach the use of a 
thing, and thence refer it to the divine artificer. 
The eye is made to see, the ear to hear, the tongue 
to speak, the limbs to walk, and so on through the 
endless catalogue. This gross philosophy can see 



1 86 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

nothing higher than mechanical use ; and a machine, 
as a watch, is its constant illustration. 

The nautilus, with its nicely divided and adjusted 
air-chambered cell, its oars, its sails, its rudder, very- 
beautiful, and nicely adapted to the conditions in 
which it is placed, are conclusive proof, it is affirmed, 
of design in structure. The carnivora are especially 
designed to keep the herbivora within bounds. 
They were created for that object, and no other. 
Volumes might be filled with such instances which 
are trumpted forth as conclusive evidence of design. 

The animals of the north have a thick covering of 
fur ; while those at the equator are generally des- 
titute, or only clothed with hair. Is this from de- 
sign, or the direct effect of climate 1 The answer 
is given when the fur or wool clad animal, transferred 
to the equator, in a few generations loses its fur or 
wool, and becomes covered with hairs. Is the deer 
given long legs to enable it to be fleet, or is it fleet 
because it has long legs 1 Let us not place the ef- 
fect for the cause. How many abortive attempts does 
nature make to every success "i When conditions 
are wrong, there is failure, inevitably. Darwin has 
traced the wondrous lines of animal progress, and 
shown how only by repeated and innumerable fail-- 
ures the present equilibrium, which is called design^ 
has been reached. * There is no accident. 

" There reigns everywhere, in consequence of the 
immutability of nature's laws, a certain necessity 
which admits of no exception." f 

* Origin of Species. \ Biickner. 



The Doctrine of Design. 187 

The paleontological history of the earth proves be- 
yond question that organic life is as delicate to" the 
varying external conditions as the needle to the 
electric current. This vast series of extinct and liv- 
ing forms " presents itself before us/' says De Jou- 
vencel, " not as the execution of a natural plan, but 
as an historical result, continually modified by a 
multitude of causes, which have acted consecutively, 
and in which every accident, every irregularity, rep- 
resents the action of a cause. The plan — in the 
sense in which the expression is employed — does 
not exist. The forces act necessarily blindly, and 
from their concurrence beings take their origin. To 
believe that nature follows a serial plan is a grave 
error. The series is a resultant, and not an idea of 
nature : it is nature itself" As Kant remarks, '' It 
is reflecting reason which brought design into the 
world, and which admires a wonder created by itself" 

We should mi^x a priori, from these premises, that, 
as the equilibrium of forces cannot be at once gained, 
nature would present strange freaks and anomalies. 
Thus there are poisonous reptiles, insects, and plants ; 
parasites which seem created for no other purpose 
but giving pain to other animals ; locusts darken- 
ing the air, and leaving famine in their flight ; the 
entozoa, as the tape-worm, existing only to multiply, 
and thereby cause suffering to higher animals, — do 
not speak well for an intelligent designer. Such in- 
stances hav^e always been difficult points for theology, 
and it has assumed that the sin committed by man 
brought this antagonism into being : geology, how- 



1 88 Career of the God'Idea in History. 

ever, proves that it existed ages before man came in- 
to existence. It has attempted to account in the 
same manner for disease. Science teaches that dis- 
ease is as old as organic Hfe. The younger or 
more primitive — in other words, the more savage — a 
people are, the more subject are they to disgusting 
and destructive diseases, as is proved by the history 
of all rude peoples. In proportion as they become 
civilized, life is lengthened. 

Is there design in monstrosities ; in the birth of 
beings which from organization cannot exist as indi- 
viduals } To account for such, the ancients referred 
them to the wrath of the gods. Births without 
limbs, or with two heads, or entirely destitute of a 
brain, are not uncommon. Of the latter, Prof Lotze 
remarks, " If the foetus is without a brain, it would 
be but judicious, in a force having a free choice, to 
suspend its action, that such a miserable and pur- 
poseless creature may exist for a time, appears to 
us strikingly to prove that the final result always 
depends upon the disposition of purely mechanical 
definite forces, which, once set in motion, proceed 
straight on, according to the law of inertia, until they 
meet with an obstruction." 

The healing power or vital force of nature is a 
myth. When proper conditions exist, the wound 
heals ; but, otherwise, inflammation, suppuration, or 
mortification, take place with equal facility. It is said 
that nature has antidotes for every disease. Medi- 
cal science has long ago discarded this specific ac- 
tion of remedies ; and, even had it not, how despica- 



Design in Creation. 189 

ble that design which creates an evil in order to 
bestow an antidote, when it would have been better 
to have created neither ! 

A trivial accident may change the whole process 
of nature ; as the healthy foetus may by one unto- 
ward act of the mother become a hideous monster. 
Can the idea of an active conscious power be recon- 
cilable with such results ? Nothing is gained by 
saying such an omnipotent consciousness presup- 
poses the perfect understanding of all possible con- 
sequences. 

Is the earth created for man .? A very poor cre- 
ation if so. With what labor and suffering he sub- 
dues a litle spot sufficient for a dwelling ! Many of 
the finest adaptations are the work of his intelligence : 
as the horse, to Arabia ; the camel, to the deserts of 
Africa ; the olive, to Italy ; the grape, to the Rhine ; 
the apple, pear, peach, grape, cereals, and grasses, ox, 
horse, and sheep, to the vast American continent. 

Man employs the minerals, metals, and stone 
found in the earth's crust for purposes of comfort 
and convenience, and it is said a beautiful design is 
shown in the manner they are distributed through 
the earth's crust. The coal and iron fields of the 
great West are often quoted. But what shall we 
think of the vast iron beds of Pilot Knob and Iron 
Mountain, far away from the coal absolutely neces- 
sary to make that ore, the richest and best in the 
world, of any benefit 1 The theologian may specu- 
late : but the philosopher, as he reviews the field, can 
see only the action of forces moving forward to their 



1 90 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

determinate results ; and man wrenches from them 
the assistance he may require, or, as often happens, 
is crushed by their unchangeable movements. 

The theory of final cause, placing God as a direct 
actor, creating the universe as a mechanic, and al- 
ways at work, directly superintending, is the most 
easy method of accounting for the phenomena of the 
world. 

It is an easy philosophy. It makes great preten- 
sions to wisdom and learning, but requires little 
thought on the part of its votaries : it burdens them 
not with reflection, never leaves them on their own 
responsibility ; but permits them, slipshod, to reason 
as far as they can, and leave the rest to God. It is 
an easy philosophy, bestowing quiet and the comfort 
of indolence. On the other hand, that system which 
ignores final cause and design throws the student 
on his own resources, and bids him sink or swim. 
If he dive a thousand fathoms into the sea of truth, 
the light of the pearls he finds there always reveals 
another thousand to be explored, with a deep sea- 
floor strown with gems of greater lustre. Ever a 
great truth beyond underlies and absorbs all present 
knowledge ; and, so far from being able to fall back 
into the lap of a final cause, he becomes more and 
more assured, every step he advances, that, although 
he live a million ages, ever will unknown causes 
arise in the dim beyond, embracing all his previous 
knowledge. 

One doctrine is the fostering mother of egotism 
and self-sufliciency ; the other, of humility and a 



Intelligence in JSTahtre. 191 

sense of the feebleness of human efforts to fathom 
the unknown. If we cast aside the doctrine of final- 
ity and design, how can we account rationally for 
the phenomena of nature which so admirably coun- 
terfeit these ? It is true, then, when we superficially 
view the external world, we are strongly impressed 
with this adaptation : means are employed for cer- 
tain ends ; causes run given courses to their effects ; 
and there is an order which seems to presuppose an 
Omnipotent Being behind the curtain of the exter- 
nal world, who, like an all-seeing monarch, sends 
out mandates from the fountain of an omnipotent 
will. Such, I say, is the appearance. We see that 
which, in a remarkable manner, counterfeits the in- 
telligence of man. To our finite comprehension it 
takes the form of an infinitely extended intelligence 
supported by infinite power. We look out into na- 
ture as into a mirror, and we see ourselves reflected 
there. The intelligence we see is our own intelli- 
gence, slightly magnified ; and the will power our 
own, enlarged. It is a personality : we cannot 
dodge that. Say what we will, talk of an imper- 
sonal essence, an omnipotent principle, as we will, 
yet the bald fact stares us in the face. We cannot 
conceive of an existence without personality, or an 
essence without being. Still worse is the dilemma 
when the supposed faculty of the human mind, ven- 
eration for Deity, is brought forward as proving the 
existence of such an essence. For, say these theo- 
rists, man is a reverential being. He has veneration 
for a superior being ; which desire presupposes its 



192 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

answer, — the existence of a being to worship. But 
how worship a principle ? How reverence an imper- 
sonal essence ? How feel grateful or loving towards 
an attribute ? It is impossible. As soon as these 
feelings arise, the attribute becomes incarnated : 
we are worshiping a personality. What is this be- 
ing } Our own ideas incarnated. In proof, is Jeho- 
vah more than an unlimited Jew, the most cruel, 
bloodthirsty, and criminal race the sun ever shone 
upon 1 Is Brahma more than the ideal of the 
cringing, servile Hindoo } Is Ormuzd more than 
the reflection of the highly imaginary and heated 
fancy of the Persian t Is Christ more than the 
enlargment of refined morality as exhibited in de- 
veloped man t Is any man's god much greater 
than himself.'* Does he possess power or faculties 
which he cannot suppose himself capable of pos- 
sessing } These are pertinent questions, which 
never have been, never can be, met ; and their an- 
swer unravels all the mysteries of the theologies of 
the world. While man has thought to worship God, 
he has worshiped, instead, the reflected image of 
himself. 

Jehovah is a tyrannical Jew ; Jove, a brave and 
amorous Greek ; Ormuzd, a Persian ; Brahma, a 
cruel, domineering Hindoo, in power ; Christ, the 
highest ideal of any race to which he is introduced. _ 

As each individual, who sees the rainbow, sees a 
different bow, because his standpoint is different, so 
nd two individuals believe in the same God, because 
each sees his own image. 



Eternity of Matter. 193 

Back of all mechanical schemes of creation, back 
of the gross theories of use, of contrivance, which 
smell strongly of burnt oil, the smoke of the shop 
and the foundry, are principles which overflow and 
obliterate all other conceptions. To these let us 
now turn, not with bared head and unsandaled feet, 
but clad with the mantle of a reasoning philosophy, 
which teaches that no domain is sacred ; that a 
milkman's yard, and the courts of heaven, are equally 
holy. 

Matter is eternal. We need not pause to prove 
this axiom on which all strictly scientific reasoning 
rests. As a self-evident truth it stands forth, chal- 
lenging refutation. We are at least as well justified 
in asserting this, as are those who suppose its crea- 
tion in asserting the self-existence of a being capable 
of creating it. Call this doctrine a wild, unsupported 
assertion : it is a justifiable one. It is not an as- 
sertion, however. Axioms are based on experience. 
All reasoning rests there ; all science, all philosophy. 
Experience shows that matter cannot either be cre- 
ated or destroyed by any agent now existing, and 
the constitution of matter shows that it is impossible 
for any such agency to exist. 

Now arises the pertinent question, " What is mat- 
ter } " Can the ultimate molecule, of which matter 
by some philosophers is supposed to be composed, 
be disrobed of its properties, and stand out alone } 
We cannot conceive of such an existence. With- 
out gravity, it could have no weight, no attractions, 
no repulsions ; could not enter any organization 
13 



1 94 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

whatever, either in mineral, vegetable, or animal. 
Without extension and impenetrability, the world 
might be crowded into a nutshell, and then have no 
consistency. Heated, indeed, must be the imagina- 
tion which can fancy the existence of a world formed 
of such materials. Rob matter of these attributes, 
and nothing is left. 

Still worse, if the German theory be received, that 
what we call an atom is a pulsating centre or math- 
ematical point, from which attributes are emanated ; 
for then, if we rob the centre of its pulsations, noth- 
ing remains. 

These attributes are co-eternal and co-existent with 
matter. What are these attributes ^ In all inves- 
tigations, we must start somewhere. There must 
be a definite beginning : and without questioning 
the origin of matter, what it is, and the birth of 
its attributes, thus involving ourselves in an unlimi- 
ted maze of conjecture, for which there can be not a 
shadow of positive proof, we start from premises that 
we can prove ; and when others come after, and ex- 
tend the horizon of thought, perhaps beyond these 
attributes may lie others, and others beyond them, 
and a personal God beyond all ; but, until then, we 
must wait. 

Perhaps, as has been suggested, they are the will 
of Deity. Granted. They may be ; but in the absence 
of all proof, of all knowledge whatever, it is better 
to let the matter rest until the conjecture at least 
has a shade of evidence in its support. 

We are now rapidly approaching the unfolding of 



Primary Condition of Matter. 195 

the 'principles which underHe the design and adap- 
tation observed in nature. We began far down, 
and came upward, carefully grounding our argument 
on the firm basis of the eternity of matter and the 
co-eternity of its attributes, by which term we mean 
its properties. 

Matter, when first brought to view by the far-see- 
ing inverted telescope, which retrospects the million 
eons of past duration, was a gaseous chaos. It may 
have been heated, — it may not have been ; a ques- 
tion which cannot be determined. This much we 
know : there was a time, which we call the begin- 
ning, when the universe existed as a gaseous ocean. 
Froni such a vast object of contemplation let us turn 
to the consideration of our solar system, which is 
quite sufficient to satisfy the grasp of human 
thought. It is a chaotic ocean of vapor floating in 
space. It has not yet been acted on by any exter- 
nal force. It is so far removed that no external body 
can act on it. Watch what occurs. Left alone to 
obey the dictation of its attributes, gravity rounds 
the mass ; for, there being more matter towards the 
centre than in the opposite direction, each particle 
is drawn inward, and, as an equilibrium must be es- 
tablished, the ocean is rounded. Each particle takes 
a straight line for the centre, but it is infinitely im- 
probable that a perfect equilibrium should be at once 
established. If there are more particles on one side 
than the other, instead of going directly to the cen- 
tre, the particles will take a spiral line to that point, 
the whole mass will rotate on its axis, which rotation 



196 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

will increase until the attraction of the external par- 
ticles will be overcome, and a succession of rings be 
thrown off. These rings will consolidate into worlds, 
having relatively the density, size, and distance of 
the planets from our sun. A simiiar process will 
eliminate the moons by the rotation of their nacent 
planets. 

Is there design here } It is matter obeying the 
dictates of its attributes, driven onward by the stern 
necessity of their decrees, and these are issued with 
all the regularity and certainty of mathematics : in 
fact, mathematics is based on them, and its most 
sublime feat is the exposition of their laws and 
method of action. 

If the solar system was created by design, and 
with special reference to the sentient and intellectual 
beings which inhabit it, a few queries arise, each one 
of which must be answered straightforward, without 
reference to mystery. Why were not the large planets 
placed near the sun, instead of so far off that its rays 
can be of little service to them ? If the moons are 
to give light to their planets, why were they not cre- 
ated larger .? and why, as in cases of Saturn and Ju- 
piter, the smaller next to the planets, and the largest 
so far removed as to be of little or no service as 
luminaries } So of the stars, if to give light is their 
object. Would it not have been better to have 
given Saturn one sun to revolve around him, than 
six moons, the combined rays of which give not 
much more light than the earth's satellite .^ It is 
supposed to be so hot on Mercury, that living be- 



There is no Chance. 197 

ings cannot exist there ; and hence its creation is a 
failure, — it subserves no possible use. Comets, too, 
are out of place in a system made by an all-wise 
design : they are egregious blunders, every one of 
them ; reflecting on the character of the being who 
made them, if made by design. 

How stale and unprofitable the doctrine which 
provokes such questions ! With a loathing sickness 
I turn from it to the beautiful domain of nature, 
where worlds and systems are eliminated by the 
mandates of inherent attributes, with all the precis- 
ion and certainty of mathematics. Each world ex- 
ists, has its size, form, position, fixed by inexorable 
decree. Nothing is fortuitous. There is no chance. 
Like a great self-adjusting wheel, creation moves on- 
ward without a discord. The equilibrium is dis- 
turbed. Planets, like vast pendulums, swing to and 
fro as the grand chronometer beats the march of 
ages ; but the regulating forces ever bring them, after 
centuries perhaps, to their true place. The star- 
continents of space roll onward in their orbits. The 
force which rounds the dew-drop rolls out the great 
world, and cannot be gainsaid. 

For a moment, suppose an omnipotent being out- 
side of nature should will the earth to become 
square : it would roll onward, — the spheroid gravity 
has shaped it. Such a being would be useless in 
the structure of nature, which demands no power at 
the crank to turn her ponderous machinery ; for hers 
is a perpetual motion, with power within itself ade- 
quate for all ends. 



iqS Career of the God-Idea in History. 

If special design fails to answer why six moons 
and three rings were given Saturn, while only four 
were given Uranus, twice as far removed from the 
sun ; why one was given the earth, and none to 
Mars, twice as far from the sun ; or what freak of 
fancy gave Saturn his rings, and refused rings to all 
the other planets, — the theory of creation by law, 
backed by power flowing from attributes, does ac- 
count for these phenomena and all others. 

Equally faulty is it when it attempts to account 
for the origin and development of life. Let us pre- 
sent the facts as they are revealed in the rocky tab- 
lets of earth. The huge volume of geological and 
palseontological history, miles in thickness, can be 
condensed into a few pages. 

From the vapor ocean of the beginning, the earth 
was born. It was an intensely heated sphere of gas. 
Eons of ages swept by. It emanated its heat ; be- 
came liquid lava. A solid crust formed over the mass. 
Water condensed. Life came. What form of life 
peopled the black thermal seas, which swept past 
the rugged peaks that frowned through the sooty at- 
mosphere of those primordial ages } Was it fish, 
reptilian, or mammalian } Nay, the lowest of all, 
lower than mammal, lower than reptile, lower than 
fish, lower than mollusc, than the vegetating sponge, 
— a line of jelly floating in the waves. 

From that simple beginning life arose : higher and 
higher beings peopled the globe. Fishes came, rep- 
tiles came, mammals came ; and, last and highest, 
man stepped forth on this planet, claiming it as his. 



Design in Nature. 199 

A rude being was he then, in his natal days, clothed 
in the garments nature gives the beasts of the wood 
and fieJd. Such, O theologian ! are the facts : how 
meet them with your argument of special design ? 
If God is an infinite, all-wise, good, and benevolent 
being ; if he had, as you assert, perfect control over 
matter, — why did he not at once evoke a perfect 
world into existence, instead of the rude model of the 
design ? and why permit it to toil for a millennium of 
ages through pain and misery to its present attain- 
ments ? This is not a cavil : it is logic. A perfect 
being, with omnipotence, cannot create other than 
a perfect world. The question is a home thrust 
at your cherished dogmas. Again, why permit it 
to remain as imperfect as it is when one mandate 
would give us paradise } 

Has man fallen 1 Are we depraved } Were 
things once perfect } You will find that these 
mythological fables and Indian legends cannot save 
you. 

It must be admitted that creation by law, and the 
existence of a personal God, are at open war ; and, 
if one be received, the other must be denied, for if 
God cannot work except through prescribed chan- 
nels, marked out by the laws of matter, of what use 
is he in the economy of the universe } And equally 
of what use if the other side be adopted } We 
have other questions to ask, and volumes might be 
filled with them. Why is it, although many crea- 
tions have been swept from the earth, and over a 
million species now exist, one plan runs through 



200 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

them all ? Why do all pattern after a given arche- 
type ? The theory of creation by law makes the an- 
swers plain and clear ; that of design, the reverse. 

Man sets out for an aquatic animal. He has the 
gill openings and circulating system of fishes, yet 
he is born fitted for terrestrial life. What is the ob- 
ject of metamorphosis throughout the countless ranks 
of living beings t Is it not because they have a com- 
mon origin, and that the realm of life is a unit } 

We have asked our last question. We leave the 
special pleaders the field, and turn to the considera- 
tion of the origin of what has been mistaken for in- 
telligence and design. What is the intelligence seen 
in nature } Is it of the same kind as that manifested 
by an intelligent being .^ An intelligent being is 
one capable of employing means, adapting cause to 
effect ; of willing, manufacturing, creating. Can and 
does the intelligence seen in nature thus act ? If 
so, we must of necessity presuppose an intelligent 
being residing in or above matter ; a conclusion 
which has already been disproved. How then shall 
this intelligence be defined .? It is the harmony pro- 
duced by the equilibrium of all the causes and effects 
in the universe. Worlds are round because origi- 
nally fluid, and a fluid mass suspended in space can 
assume no other form. The poles and equator were 
established by the spheroidicity given by the rota- 
tion of a fluid mass, — not because an intelHgence 
acted, but because by no other means could har- 
mony result ; and, until harmony reigned, action and 
re-action must go on. 



Design in Nature. 201 

If there were but one road from one city to an- 
other, and that narrowly hedged on either side by 
impassible barriers, it would argue no great degree 
of intelligence, even in an idiot, to go softly over it. 
Such is the road matter travels, propelled hy causes 
to given effects. It is not intelligence : it is neces- 
sity of organization. 

The rain falls. It is refreshing to plant and ani- 
mal. The world rejoices in the shower. Is intelli- 
gence concerned in the taking-up the waters of the 
sea and lake, and drenching the thirsty continents } 
Let us see. The air by its gaseous constitution is 
capable of absorbing moisture. The warmer it is, the 
more moisture it is capable of containing. When- 
ever its temperature is lowered, it gives out the 
moisture absorbed at a higher temperature. Con- 
sequently, whenever a cold and warm current of air 
meet, rain is produced ; or, if the cold current 
chances to be cold enough, hail or snow. The same 
cause which gives the delightful spring shower, to 
refresh the violets, piles the avalanche on the Alpine 
heights, and sends the devastating hail to destroy 
the harvest. 

Is there design in a hail-storm sweeping the earth 
with the besom of destruction } Is there design in 
the terrific whirlwind overthrowing the labor of cen- 
turies } Is design seen in the crash of the earth- 
quake, drinking up continents, and shutting its mut- 
tering jaws over populous cities } Is an all-wise in- 
telligence concerned in these effects } How fero- 
cious must that intelligence be ! how unmindful of 



202 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

the happiness of man ! - Such phenomena are side 
issues from the great principles which underhe the 
foundation of nature. They are consequences of a 
disturbed equiUbrium which the elements strive to 
maintain. 

O man ! O philosopher ! when will you recognize 
this fact, and not charge a Deity with such outpour- 
ings of wrath } 

Astonishing is a living being ; mysterious in 
structure. How explain its existence otherwise than 
by supposing a direct miracle a creation by special 
fiat of an almighty being } Perhaps it cannot be 
explained, for a living being epitomizes the universe ; 
and as little, comparatively, is known of the laws of 
life, it is premature to hazard even conjecture on the 
mysteries of organization. This we know, — that a 
living being represents, is the centralization of, all 
causes and conditions which have operated on it 
and its progenitors, since the dawn of life, in the 
ocean of the beginning. We have a long series of 
conditions to investigate, and our investigation ends 
in pronouncing life the result of conditions brought 
about by and through this long series of organic types. 
The living being — - man, for instance — began its 
individualization with the dawn of life on this planet, 
and has only attained its present degree by progress 
through centuries as countless as the sand-grains on 
the ocean's shore. All this series is swept away. 
We can superficially see only the perfected struct- 
ure. Hence the obscurity, the mystery, which in- 
volves the living being. Rest assured, there is no 



Design in Nature. 203 

more necessity for a special creation, or of design, 
here than elswhere. Living beings are not designed 
for the conditions in which they are placed, but 
these conditions compel conformity. Conform, or 
perish, is their mandate. 

The fishes in the Mammoth Cave are said to be 
destitute of eyes. They are not deprived of those 
organs because they would be useless in the absence 
of light ; but because, in the absence of light, their 
eyes remain undeveloped. Man does not possess 
lungs to breathe air ; but, because there is air to be 
breathed, he has lungs. Throughout this whole se- 
ries the effect has been placed for the cause, and vice 
versa. We have not a brain to reason and reflect, 
but we reason and reflect because we have a brain. 
We might enumerate an endless catalogue of such 
instances ; but the idea is sufficiently illustrated. 

All this reasoning can be overthrown by suppos- 
ing- the existence of an impersonal intelligence. It 
has been attempted to prove the impossibility of the 
existence of such an essence, but perhaps not satis- 
factorily. 

Suppose such an essence exists : where is it } 
what is it .'^ It immediately becomes confounded 
with what we have called the attributes of matter. 
From these it cannot be separated ; and, as such, its 
existence is admitted. Why, then, not acknowledge it 
under that name 'i Because we will not admit a term 
which not only conveys a false impression, but leads 
to grossest error. We demand scientific accuracy, 
and we can only have it by calling things by their 



204 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

right names. An attribute is not an essence. It is 
devoid of intelligence, which is not manifested until 
the end is reached. The effect, though flowing from 
unintelligent causes, we call an intelligent effect. 

Now comes the metaphysician armed cap-a-pie 
with words to demolish us in the unfortunate dilem- 
ma to which at last we have reduced ourselves. He 
asks, " Can a stream rise higher than its source 1 " 
Granted. " Can intelligence flow from unintelligent 
causes t " No. My good sir, refer to our pre- 
vious reasoning, and you will find that we deny the 
identity between the intelligence manifested in man, 
and that observed in nature. They are wholly unlike, 
and only counterfeit each other in appearance. You 
are thus unfortunate, and your questions wholly im- 
pertinent. 

We plow our fields with design to sow. Nature 
regulates our harvests. The intelligence which sows 
the wheat, and that which causes it to grow, cannot 
be compared. It has been strongly argued that the 
compensation seen in nature bore strong testimony 
in favor of a designer. Accidents seem to be pro- 
vided for : disturbances and perturbations in plane- 
tary masses, and in living beings, are balanced by 
other disturbing forces as by prophetic foresight, so 
that harmony results from antagonism. If this sub- 
ject is carefully studied, however, compensation will 
be found arrayed against, instead of favoring, a final 
cause. 

We are early impressed with the beautiful com- 
pensations presented in nature ; for we learn it before 



Design in Nature. 205 

our alphabet, and it dawns on the mature mind of 
manhood in eternal beauty. 

The child eagerly reads in his philosophy how 
the blow of *a hammer moves the earth ; and, when 
a stone falls to the ground, the whole mass of the 
planet rushes forward to meet it. Still more ex- 
alted are his conceptions when told that every 
thought, however concealed and locked in the 
depths of his brain he may keep it, pulsates on the 
remotest star which twinkles on the mantle of night 
So delicate do we early learn the grand spheres are 
strung and attuned. Night, the friend of darkness 
arid of rest, is compensated by a moon to shed a 
new splendor, to beget a second day ; and, in the 
sombre mantle darkness casts over the heavens, 
myriad suns spring out, the existence of which we 
never otherwise would have dreamed of Beauties 
spring from rankest deformity. Ever are we assured 
that death, with all its horrid ghastliness, will give 
birth to transcendent forms. So is the world adjust- 
ed. The daddock, an unseemly pile moldering back 
to earth, was once a mighty forest tree, with arms 
an hundred feet high, and a green coronal of boughs 
among which for centuries the zephyrs sang pleas- 
ant songs, and the birds built their mossy nests, 
and callow broods murmured love, or warbled from 
swelling throats delightful harmony. It molders to 
dust. It dies to be resurrected. Again shall that 
foul dust course through the veins of life ; and, high 
above the trees which now look down on its ruins, 



2o6 Career of the God-Idea in History, 

it shall again hear the song of the murmuring winds, 
the chirping wren, and full-throated thrush. 

Such is the perpetual round. The flower blooms 
beautiful to-day. Nature labors a whole year on a 
rose or lily, or velvety tulip, to see her frail work 
perish in the hour. The green leaf is for the whole 
summer, those of the evergreens for the year ; but 
the more exquisite flower absorbs so much of beauty 
it perishes in the day which gives its birth. We 
love nature, because it teaches us these divine com- 
pensations. How beautiful the forget-me-not on 
the sunny bank ; and the jonquil, orchis, and crocus 
blooming on the edge of snow-drifts cast from the 
lap of winter to perish in the generous breath of 
April ! They early greet the sun when he steps over 
to our hemisphere. They are wanderers from that 
northern clime where spring, summer, and autumn 
are crowded in the space of two months by the re- 
morseless frost-king, who ever there breathes a bit- 
ing breath. They awake at the first touch of Sum- 
mer's jeweled fingers, bloom, mature, and die in a 
day, and the lichen-clad earth is again ready for its 
snow-shroud. Few animals live in that arctic clime. 
The reindeer crops the moss by the light of the 
northern fire which replaces the glories of the sun ; 
the polar bear, clad in thickest robes, wanders over 
the floes ; the whales, the seal, and other marine 
mammalia, are protected against concussions from 
moving ice, and the intensely cold water, by a thick 
coat of blubber, the best non-conductor of heat, the 
best possible for their defense ; and man remains 



Design in Nature. 207 

there, dwarfed intellectually to the level of the ani- 
mals, the skins of which he uses for protection, and 
burrows in the ground to escape the rigors of intol- 
erable cold. 

Here many queries arise ! Are the Northern fires 
designed to replace the sun so long absent ? Are 
the thick robes of the bear, and its white color, the 
thick blubber vesture of the whale, footmarks of an 
intelligent design ? Is it true the aurora never visits 
tropical regions because it is not wanted there, and 
the poles because wanted ? or is such the constitution 
of things ? The cold air of the poles fosters electric 
pulsations, while the hot tropical air dissipates them. 
The phenomenon has no direct relation to man, but 
man is related to it. We shall arrive at the solution 
of the other questions by another process of thought. 

The plant is rooted to the soil. It cannot pursue 
and capture its food. It must take what is brought 
in direct contact with its rootlets, or perish. In ac- 
cordance with this organization, its food is the min- 
eral matter in which its roots are imbedded. Water 
is the universal solvent which not only dissolves its 
food, presents it to the rootlets for absorption, but 
serves as the basis of its sap or circulating fluid. 
The air, next to the water, brings it food in great 
abundance. Here is a rose-bush bending with its 
delicate burden of beauty, making the air redolent 
with perfume. It cannot move from its position. 
See how all nature, sympathizing with it, runs ea- 
gerly on its errands. The winds drink great 
draughts of water from the ocean, and bear it 



2o8 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

across the continents, showering the thirsty soil, 
washing the dust from its dehcate petals, drowning 
or washing away destroying insects. The red light- 
nings rushing through the air, convert the unas- 
similable nitrogen into precious food ; and the de- 
scending drops take it up, and bring it to the plant. 
When the foundling is washed, slaked, and revived, 
the winds clothe themselves with the remnant vapor, 
and spread out the folds of their cloud mantles to 
screen it from the scorching sun, which otherwise 
would devour too greedily the food they have sup- 
plied. It is the same with the roughest weed, which 
with nature is as much of a darling as the gorgeous 
cactus or imperial. The clouds do not bend under 
their weight of rain especially for the rose or violet. 
They love the rag-weed and dock and nightshade as 
well, and all are equally- thankful to the shower 
which nourishes and protects them. The grass, how- 
ever humble its office may seem, carpeting the lea 
with emerald tapestry, is equally cared for. Here 
the great animal kingdom holds on to life : for, 
without the grass, the herbivorous mammalia could 
scarcely flourish ; and they support the carnivora. 
Here is a splendid compensation. Perfect harmony 
exists in perpetual warfare ; carried on between plants 
and herbivora on one hand, and carnivora on the oth- 
er. The mineral kingdom forms the substratum into 
which plants send their roots, and drink directly their 
aliment. They subject the elements to a refined, 
sympathetic chemistry : new combinations grow out 
of their labors. The animal, with its strong teeth, 



The Equilibrium of Nature. 209 

can now grind down the vegetable fibre, and extract 
those substances which build up its organization. 
The flesh-eaters cannot digest such food, however, 
more than the plant-eaters can the mineral. The 
mineral must pass through the plant and the plant- 
eater before they can enter the structure of the flesh- 
eater. 

See how the equilibrium is maintained. If not for 
the carnivora, the herbivora would over-stock the 
earth, eat up all the plants, and perish amid a des- 
ert. Now, however, the flesh-eaters, plant-eaters, 
and plants are exactly balanced ; and never, except 
locally, is the balance between them disturbed. 
Whenever it is, how soon it is regained, and that, 
too, by the very disturbing causes themselves ! 

Successive seasons of fertility people the vast pam- 
pas of South America with herds of cattle. The 
stragglers cut off" by beasts of prey are of no account. 
The plains are stocked to their utmost capacity in 
seasons of greatest luxuriance. Then comes the 
season of parching drought. The grass withers, is 
blown to dust ; the soil cracks in yawning seams ; 
the air is like the breath of a furnace ; the streams 
and springs fail. The reptiles, when such danger 
presses, have a singular way of avoiding it, bestowed 
by the torpidity of their general circulation, and con- 
sequent sluggishness of their vital powers. They 
go to sleep, and do not awake until the danger is 
past. The herbivora eannot wrap themselves up in 
a coat of mud, and become oblivious. They flee, 
therefore, to less parched districts. But, save them- 



2IO Career of the God-Idea in History. 

selves as best they can, they are decimated again and 
again ; and when the winds again consent to bear 
them burdens of rain, and the fresh grass clothes the 
pampas with a splendid emerald carpet, few return 
of the sleek herds that swarmed like bees the flow- 
ery lea. The equilibrium is restored on one side, to 
be destroyed on the other. The spring recoils, — 
the pendulum swings as far on the other slide. Veg- 
etation, its enemies destroyed, grows rankly ; and the 
prairie, cropped like a shaven lawn, surges like a 
billowy sea. ~ The grass decays, still further stimula- 
ting the excess, and the excrements of the herds in- 
crease the enormous growth. Now comes the fire, 
devouring the excess, and drives away the plant food 
into the air, which bears it to less favored realms, 
where the kind rains wash it down into the scanty 
soil. The animals increase on the tender shoots 
which spring from the black and smoking desert ; 
and, after a time, the pendulum swings again on the 
other side, and the process is repeated. 

As in the realm of life, so in that of worlds. Per- 
turbations occur, planets swerve from their orbits ; 
but the same force which draws them out of place 
compels their return. What if the moon takes a 
spiral line around the earth, full of loops and turn- 
ings : she always gets to the appointed place at the 
appointed time, and never comes nearer or goes fur- 
ther than her prescribed limits. 

The planets were so named because such truants 
and wanderers. Now, however, it is ascertained 
that if they were mounted on cars running on iron 



Compensation of the Cosmos. 2 1 1 

railways, with the ablest conductors, guided by per- 
fect chronometers, they would not make their jour- 
neys more surely, nor arrive in better time. . Attrac- 
tion, which wafts them onward, keeps tally of every 
revolution, and compels punctuality. 

Once we were frightened by the ideas of astrono- 
mers, who taught, that as a traveler, when traversing 
a forest, sees the trees closing together behind him 
while they recede before him, the stars in one 
quarter of the heavens are closing together, while in 
the opposite they are receding ; showing that our 
solar system, like a lock of down upheld by an invis- 
ible breath, is rushing, a thousand times faster than 
a cannon-ball, into the unknown regions of space. 
How awfully sublime the idea ! how little, how in- 
significant, how lost, we seem ! Relief came : the 
sublimity, however, remained. Our system is not 
shooting off on a tangent, straight towards the 
thickest cluster of stars, to be wrecked on the rock- 
bound coast of some unknown world-continent ; but 
it swings round a great central body, which chains it 
with ponderous cable, and sets it in motion, in har- 
mony with all the star-dust of the firmament, like 
toys to dance in the beams of its adamantine mag- 
netism. We are not leaving our position forever, 
but eventually will swing round again. A million 
eons of ages may intervene, but we shall return. 

Comets frighten, but they are never wrecked. Rev- 
olution after revolution their light substance obeys, 
as truly as the most ponderous planets. Whether 
coursing on the wings of lightning around the fiery 



2 1 2 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

cape of the system, melted down and evaporated to 
unimaginable tenuity, or going out until their frozen 
orbs advance but a single foot in a second, it is ever 
the same. 

Now we ask what is the meaning of these phenom- 
ena. Is a divine, omnipotent planner at the head t 
and does his essence pervade them all.'* Perhaps: 
we know not. This we do know, — that the compen- 
sation and design we observe do not prove the exist- 
ence of intelligence. We have endeavored to settle 
this point. The essence may exist too deeply seated 
for finite comprehension ; but, in the absence of all 
knowledge, we cannot receive this theory. The true 
philosopher must await the proof, patiently, expec- 
tantly, and, when it does come, be ready to receive, 
hospitably entertain, and promulgate it to the world. 
Something underlies all these specialties ; and that 
something we have asserted, and attempted to prove, 
to be the attributes of matter, those properties on 
which its existence depends, which make it matter. 
A finality it is impossible to reach ; yet at least a 
rational system of investigation may be marked out, 
a better system of theo-philosophy presented. The 
law by which this equilibrium is established and 
maintained is clearly defined as being constitutional 
and inherent in the universe, and on this basis all 
investigation should be conducted. If we philoso- 
phize, here our theories rest : if we study specialties, 
here we find a foundation capable of supporting all 
nature, and showing unity amid her infinite diver- 
sity. 



Summary of Statements. 213 

We have endeavored to make plain the theory 
here advanced ; and, if understood, the distinction 
becomes apparent. 

There is, nor can be, no design in structure. If 
so, an all-wise and benevolent being would have 
made the earth a paradise, and man a perfect being ; 
in short, instituted the millennium of which man- 
kind have dreamed. If he created the world as it is, 
so much of it waste of water or desert, ice-bound or 
sun-burned, so ill adapted to the prime object of its 
creation for the residence of man, proves that he is 
limited by the capabilities of matter. If so, and the 
dilemma cannot be dodged, so far from being an infi- 
nite being, he is finite and circumscribed by his own 
creation. The maker is a slave to his machine. Sta- 
tioning himself at the crank to start it, he is chained 
there to run an everlasting round. 

Grant the other branch of this doctrine. God and 
matter are co-eternal, this reasoning applies. The 
Deity is circumscribed by laws which he cannot 
transcend. His will avails nothing, for the same 
effects are produced whether he wills them or not. 
He wills a world to be round, or a plant to bloom : 
both occur ; but the inherent properties of matter, 
that which makes its matter round the world whether 
willed to or not, and the forces of life, create the 
bloom of the flower. His will, thus considered, is 
extraneous and superfluous. In all historic instances, 
God is the shadow of the reverencing mind, which 
mistakes the object of veneration. Teaching us 
to love the good and true, and personifying these 



214 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

in a God, it prostrates itself before its own crea- 
tion. These theories and wild conjecturings, origi- 
nating with savage man, have floated down the 
ages ; and what was once the endeavors of children 
to account for the unknown has been received by 
children of a larger growth as divine records of di- 
vine events. 

The battle so long waged on metaphysical ground, 
between truth and error, is transferred now to the 
fields of positive science. Mankind are learning 
rapidly the wholesome lesson that positive knowl- 
edge is the only true knowledge, the only means 
of correctly reading the book of nature. 

Science has no special pleadings to make. She 
sets up no claims to infallibility. She states only 
what can be demonstrated, and draws a cle^r line be- 
tween the known and the unknown. The vast, inde- 
fined dream-land of conjecture she studies as phe- 
nomena of mind, rather than as realities. 

Theologians, or mythologians, as you please, have 
worked at their self-imposed tasks from immemorial 
time. They have, by the religious wars and perse- 
cutions they have excited, originated more misery, 
crime, and degradation, than all other causes com- 
bined. We have painfully traced their troubled 
course through races and ages ; and what result 
have they achieved? Forever have they gone the 
same weary round, working the treadmill, and idly 
thought^ because they moved, they were advancing. 

They are not to be blamed, but pitied. They as- 
sumed false data ; and, the more they reasoned, the 



The Divine Man. 215 

more erroneous they became. They did not per- 
ceive this ; but each generation plodded after the 
preceding, and at length came to receive antiquity 
as a proof of the divine origin of the creeds. 

We have reviewed the sacred beliefs of all races, 
and nowhere have we found the footstep of an Infi- 
nite Being. All are stamped with the unmistakable 
evidence of human origin. A Christian can readily 
detect that in the sacred books of the Hindoo, and 
the Hindoo can quite as readily detect the same in 
the sacred books of the Christian. Everywhere we 
have found God the ideal of what man should be ; 
that being the highest conception it is possible for 
man to attain. 

This is right. The ideal, perfect man should re- 
ceive the homage of his fellows. This lesson we are 
now applying, — the divinity of man. 

All we know is phenomena, and their laws. The 
laws are modes of action growing out of the con- 
stitution of matter itself. By the limitation of our 
minds we cannot know anything beyond that point. 

In that misty land of clouds and conjecture, the 
theologian and metaphysician have an ample field to 
wander, and perhaps they may bring forth some- 
thing which the present methods of science cannot 
obtain, but the experience of the past does not hold 
out the inducements of a very ardent hope. They 
can no more pass words for thought, however intri- 
cately interwoven. The age has outgrown them and 
their methods. What we know, what we can prove, 
is its inexorable demand. Beyond matter and its 



2i6 Career of the God-Idea in History. 

laws may stand an Infinite Supreme ; but in the 
absolute impossibility of our understanding him, in 
the total absence of any revelation except nature to 
us from him, we can learn nothing by reasoning on 
his attributes, and must rest content. 

How idle, how preposterously puerile, to wrangle 
over creeds representing God a unity or trinity ! 
What insanity involved in such disputes ! The uni- 
verse will move onward, and we shall fulfill our des- 
tinies, however unknown be the divine total, or how- 
ever far removed beyond the grandest generalization 
of the human mind. 



(PREPARING.) 



THE CAREER 



OF THE 



Christ-Idea in History. 



A COMPANION VOLUME TO 



The Career of the God-Idea. 



BY HUDSON TUTTLE. 



CONTENTS. 
I. Introductory. 
II. Career of the Christ- Idea in Hindostan and among 
other Races. 

III. Prophecies of the Advent of Jesus. 

IV. Conception and Genealogy. 
V. Birth of Jesus. 

VI. John the Baptist. — His relations to Jesus. 
VII. The Sermon on the Mount. 
VIII.- Miracles. 

IX. Sending forth of the Apostles. 
X. The Fatal Journey. 
XI. Burial and Resurrection. 
XII. The Descent into Hell. 

XIII. The Gospels. 

XIV. Resume of the Life and Character of Jesus. 
XV. Causes of the Extension of Christianity. 

XVI. The Ultimate of the Christ-Idea. 



5 LI-OS 



